Dense city centers support less evolutionary unique bird communities than sparser urban areas.

ABSTRACT: Urbanization alters avian communities, generally lowering the number of species and contemporaneously increasing their functional relatedness, leading to biotic homogenization. Urbanization can also negatively affect the phylogenetic diversity of species assemblages, potentially decreasing their evolutionary distinctiveness. We compare species assemblages in a gradient of building density in seventeen European cities to test whether the evolutionary distinctiveness of communities is shaped by the degree of urbanization. We found a significant decline in the evolutionary uniqueness of avian communities in highly dense urban areas, compared to low and medium-dense areas. Overall, communities from dense city centers supported one million years of evolutionary history less than communities fro

SUBMITTER: Morelli F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10844830 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature