Understanding the composition of urban wildlife communities is crucial to promote biodiversity, ecosystem function and links between nature and people. Using crowdsourced data from over five million eBird checklists, we examined the influence of urban characteristics on avian richness and function at 8443 sites within and across 137 global cities. Under half of the species from regional pools were recorded in cities, and we found a significant phylogenetic signal for urban tolerance. Site‐level avian richness was positively influenced by the extent of open forest, cultivation and wetlands and avian functional diversity by wetlands. Functional diversity co‐declined with richness, but groups including granivores and aquatic birds occurred even at species‐poor sites. Cities in arid areas held a higher percentage of regional species richness. Our results indicate commonalities in the influence of habitat on richness and function, as well as lower niche availability, and phylogenetic diversity across the world's cities.

While some species are known to thrive in urban areas, urban expansion is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Columbids such as feral Rock Doves Columba livia domestica and Common Woodpigeon Columba palumbus have adapted extremely well to the urban environment in Europe and beyond, but the Stock Dove Columba oenas, a bird of farmland and woodland edge in the UK and of national conservation concern, is encountered far more rarely in urban areas. Here we explore the multi-scale landscape associations of the little-studied Stock Dove within the urban matrix of Greater Manchester, UK, as a step towards identifying its long-term conservation needs. We built a pilot model from historical citizen science records to identify potentially occupied patches within the city, and then surveyed these patches for Stock Dove during Spring 2019. We combined the survey results with citizen science records from the same period. We described the habitat and landscape characteristics of these patches using four variables at different scales and twelve unscaled variables. We used a three-stage random forest approach to identify a subset of these variables for interpretation and a subset for prediction for the presence of Stock Dove within these patches. Key variables for predicting Stock Dove presence were their relative abundance in the region immediately beyond the core urban area, the greenness (NDVI) of the environment around patches, and the canopy cover of individual trees over 20m high within patches. Stock Doves tended to be associated with habitats with more surface water during the non-breeding season than the breeding season. Our results highlight the importance of large trees within urban greenspace and the importance of softer boundaries around urban patches for Stock Doves. While Stock Dove share many traits with species that are successful in the urban environment, they remain relatively poor urban adapters.

While a few species may thrive in urban areas, urban expansion is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Columbids such as feral Rock Doves (Columba livia domestica) and Common Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus) have adapted extremely well to the urban environment in Europe and beyond, but the Stock Dove (Columba oenas), a bird of farmland and woodland edge in the UK and of national conservation concern, is encountered infrequently in urban areas. Here we explore the multi-scale landscape associations of the little-studied Stock Dove within the urban matrix of Greater Manchester, UK, in order to identify its habitat requirements. We built a pilot model from historical citizen science records to identify potentially occupied sites within the city, and then surveyed these sites for Stock Dove during Spring 2019. We combined the survey results with citizen science records from the same period and described the habitat and landscape characteristics of sites occupied by Stock Dove using four variables at different scales plus twelve unscaled variables. We used a three-stage random forest approach to identify a subset of these variables for interpretation and a subset for prediction for the presence of Stock Dove within these sites. Key variables for predicting Stock Dove presence were their relative abundance in the landscape immediately beyond the core urban area, the greenness (NDVI) of the environment around sites, and the canopy cover of individual trees over 20 m high within sites. Stock Doves tended to be associated with habitats with more surface water during the non-breeding season than the breeding season. Our results highlight the importance of large trees within urban greenspace for this cavity-nesting species, softer boundaries around urban sites for Stock Doves and stock dove presence in nearby areas. While Stock Dove share many traits with species that are successful in the urban environment, they remain relatively poor urban adapters.

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