Multidecadal legacy of uneven urbanization on divergent prospects for bird biodiversity

Urbanization constitutes a primary driver of the ongoing global biodiversity crisis, yet how historical urban legacy effects shape contemporary biodiversity remains unclear. Neglecting lagged ecological consequences such as extinction debts and colonization credits could obscure both the risks of future urban biodiversity loss and the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Here, by integrating equilibrium and nonequilibrium models, we quantified the legacy effects of urbanization on bird communities and species in China over the past 31 years.