Patagioenas-habitat use

Urbanization transforms natural habitats into heterogeneous and highly modified landscapes that create strong ecological filters for wildlife. Understanding how native species colonize and persist in cities is essential for identifying the mechanisms that facilitate urban adaptation. Here, we investigated habitat use and nesting-site selection of two native South American pigeons, the Spot-winged Pigeon (Patagioenas maculosa) and the Picazuro Pigeon (P. picazuro), across urban environments of the southwestern Pampas region, Argentina. Although both species were frequent in cities, they exhibited distinct responses to urban habitat structure. At the transect scale, both pigeons selected vegetated areas characterized by greater tree cover and reduced bare soil, yet Spot-winged Pigeon tolerated slightly more built-up settings, whereas Picazuro Pigeon was more strongly associated with arboreal structure. At finer spatial scales, both species preferentially used open microhabitats with lower tree and shrub cover than expected from availability, suggesting a convergence toward structurally open sites for foraging or vigilance. Abundance models revealed contrasting environmental drivers, with Spot-winged Pigeon slightly positively associated with herbaceous cover and Picazuro Pigeon dependent on tree cover. Nest-site characteristics further highlighted species-level differences: Picazuro Pigeon nested in trees with denser canopies, whereas Spot-winged Pigeon showed greater tolerance for open nesting substrates. Together, these findings indicate that closely related species can follow different ecological pathways to urban colonization, shaped by their natural-history affinities. Our study underscores the role of cities as heterogeneous mosaics that enable the coexistence of species with distinct habitat requirements and provides new insights into the mechanisms underlying the expansion of native pigeons into human-modified landscapes.