Evaluating the potential for bird-habitat models to support biodiversity-friendly urban planning

Urban expansion poses a major threat to wildlife populations. Biodiversity-friendly urban landscapes could deliver benefits for both wildlife and people, by incorporating conservation and ecosystem services objectives. Well-designed urban developments could also soften the ecological impacts of urbanisation. However, delivering urban landscapes that integrate biodiversity requirements effectively remains challenging. Ecological models, designed to predict wildlife population responses to alternative urban designs, could prove effective in supporting the creation of biodiversity-friendly urban landscapes. Here, we combine national-scale bird abundance data with high resolution, spatially explicit habitat data to characterise relationships between bird densities and urban landscape form in Britain. From these analyses and cross-validation, we evaluate the potential for well-parameterised, species-specific models to be used to predict bird densities in novel or modified urban areas. ...