Community evolutionary distinctiveness of bird assemblages in a gradient of urbanization

We compare species assemblages in a gradient of building density in seventeen European cities to test whether the evolutionary distinctiveness of communities is impacted by the degree of urbanization. Bird data were collected in several European cities during the breeding season 2018. Full details are available in the following publication:Morelli, F., Benedetti, Y., Ibáñez‐Álamo, J.D., Tryjanowski, P., Jokimäki, J., Kaisanlahti-jokimäki, M., Suhonen, J., Díaz, M., Møller, A.P., Moravec, D., et al. (2021). Effects of urbanization on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic avian diversity in Europe. Sci. Total Environ. 795, 148874. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148874.Evolutionary Distinctiveness (ED) scores for all bird species recorded in our study were freely downloaded from www.edgeofexistence.org and are based on the bird phylogeny published by Jetz et al. 2014.MetadataVariableDescriptionID.codeCode unique for each siteCountryCountry where data was collectedCityCity where data was collectedLatLatitudeLongLongitudeDateDate (dd/mm/yyyy)Level.urbanClassified following three categories (henceforth called “urban level”): Low (e.g., few isolated buildings such as family houses, less dense arrangement, with medium/large green areas), medium (e.g., more buildings with blocks of flats, closer each other, with small green areas or gardens) and high (e.g., very dense building areas, almost without the presence of green spaces, mostly represented only by trees on the roadside, for example, city centres)BSRBird species richnessCEDCommunity evolutionary distinctiveness (CED) or average evolutionary distinctiveness, considering all species belonging to the community.ED MAXMaximum value of evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) score, considering all species belonging to the community