Passerine and Near Passerine Diversity, Richness, and Community Responses to a Rural to Urban Gradient in Southeastern Ohio ________________ A thesis presented to the College of Arts and Sciences Ohio University ________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the College of Arts and Sciences with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences- Wildlife Biology ________________ By Jessica E. Howell May 2014 1 This thesis has been approved by The College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Biological Sciences Dr. Donald Miles Professor, Biological Sciences Thesis Advisor Dr. Janet Duerr Professor, Biological Sciences Departmental Honors Coordinator Dr. Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 2 Abstract: Over 50% of the world’s human population lives in cities and the number is steadily rising. Urbanization involves a unique set of environmental characteristics including greater imperviousness of surfaces, higher temperatures, and higher noise and light levels than natural systems. Urban development favors resident species of birds, granivores and omnivores, and rock and cavity nesters over migrants, insectivores, and ground nesters. This leads to differences in colonization success among species. In this study I assessed species richness, diversity, abundance, and guild composition of passerine and near passerine birds in an urban area situated in a rural landscape. I hypothesized that diversity should be lowest in the most urbanized areas and highest in the rural areas, abundances of species should differ among habitats on the rural to urban gradient, and avian communities of urban and rural areas should be unique. The most rural site had the highest species richness and the urban area had the lowest. Species diversity was greater in more rural areas. The abundance of invasive species increased and migrant species richness decreased towards the urban core, and feeding and nesting guild structures differed. These results have wildlife management, biodiversity, and social implications at the local as well as global level. 3 Acknowledgements: There are so many people who have helped me along this journey. First, thank you to my advisor Dr. Don Miles for sparking my interest in Ornithology and giving me the opportunity to work in the field through this project. Second, thank you to Dr. Kelly Williams-Sieg for serving as a second advisor and patiently helping me with statistics and being a source of encouragement along the way. Third, to my loving family: my mother April Howell, father Dana Howell, sister Meghan Howell, aunt Shirley-Ann Miller, aunt Ronda Ghosh, uncle Sam Ghosh, and cousin Rani Ghosh for always encouraging me to follow my dreams of being a wildlife biologist and conservationist, and for all their support over the good and bad times over the past four years of my undergraduate college career. I cannot thank them enough for all their love and guidance. Included in my family are also my dogs and cats, especially my dog Phoebe Patriot Howell, for helping to instill a love of nature in me and inspiring me to protect wildlife. Fourth, to my friends for making me smile and helping me keep my sanity, in particular Pradeep Cheriyan, Aspen Cutlip, Amelia Adams, Mumtaz and Reda Gardezi, and Jordan and Samantha Fitch. Finally, to the staff of the Ohio University Department of Biological Sciences, for teaching me so much and giving me a sense of belonging over the past four years. There are so many people that have touched my life in some way and that have helped me grow as a student. I feel extremely blessed for all the amazing people in my life, and I could not have done this without them. 4 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 6 The Urban Environment ....................................................................................................................... 6 The Ecology of an Urban Avifauna ...................................................................................................... 9 Avian Population Dynamics. ............................................................................................................ 9 Avian Responses to Urbanization ....................................................................................................... 16 Urban Exploiters. ............................................................................................................................ 16 Urban Adaptors............................................................................................................................... 18 Urban Avoiders............................................................................................................................... 19 General Trends. .............................................................................................................................. 21 Previous Research and Predictions ..................................................................................................... 21 Current Project .................................................................................................................................... 22 Project Goals. ................................................................................................................................. 23 Project significance......................................................................................................................... 24 Methods ................................................................................................................................................... 26 Data Collection ................................................................................................................................... 26 Data Analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 27 Results ..................................................................................................................................................... 30 Species Richness, Abundance, Diversity, and Evenness .................................................................... 30 Predator Presence ................................................................................................................................ 32 Species Accumulation Curves and Number of Unobserved Species .................................................. 32 Species Differences by Site Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling .................................................... 33 5 Guild Univariate Model ...................................................................................................................... 33 Discussion ............................................................................................................................................... 34 Literature Cited ....................................................................................................................................... 41 Figures Legend ........................................................................................................................................ 50 Figures ..................................................................................................................................................... 52 Tables ...................................................................................................................................................... 61 Appendices .............................................................................................................................................. 67 Appendix A: Photographs of Study Sites ............................................................................................ 67 Appendix B: Google Maps/ACME Planimeter Satellite Images of Study Sites ................................. 70 6 Introduction The Urban Environment Increasing human population and activities have been progressively altering landscapes and ecosystems on a global scale. Estimates of the amount of land converted in some way by humans are as high as one third of global land surface (Vitousek et al., 1997). The most drastic of these changes occurs with urbanization; which carries a unique set of characteristics from ground surface to air composition. The global population of over 7 billion people and growing (United States Census Bureau, 2014) is becoming increasingly concentrated in cities. While in 1990 only 10% of the global population lived in cities, today it is over 50% and this is increasing as well, with over 95% of net population increase for the next 50 years expected to be in cities (Grimm et al., 2008). This population and city growth involves enormous amounts of resources and copious amounts of waste; representing 60% of residential water use and almost 80% of global carbon emissions (Grimm et al., 2008). Urbanization is defined as high human abundance compacted into residential and industrial areas, along with its associated effects; and an urban center is identified by having over 2500 people (Chace & Walsh, 2006). A change in thinking has taken place in recent years regarding urbanization and landscape ecology. For much of the 20th century, cities were viewed as human-induced destruction of ecosystems not within the scope of ecology (Grimm et al., 2008). Since its inception in the 1970’s,