No abstract

Nature in cities is concentrated in urban green spaces, which are key areas for urban biodiversity and also important areas to connect people with nature. To conserve urban biodiversity within these natural refugia, habitat restoration such as weed control and revegetation is often implemented. These actions are expected to benefit biodiversity, although species known to be affected by urbanization may not be interacting with restoration in the ways we anticipate. In this study, we use a case study to explore how urban restoration activities impact different bird species. Birds were grouped into urban sensitivity categories and species abundance, and richness was then calculated using a hierarchical species community model for individual species responses, with "urban class" used as the hierarchical parameter. We highlight variable responses of birds to revegetation and weed control based on their level of urban sensitivity. Revegetation of open grassy areas delivers significant bird conservation outcomes, but the effects of weed control are neutral or in some cases negative. Specifically, the species most reliant on remnant vegetation in cities seem to remain stable or decline in abundance in areas with weed control, which we suspect is the result of a simplification of the understorey.The literature reports mixed benefits of weed control between taxa and between locations. We recommend, in our case study site, that weed control be implemented in concert with replanting of native vegetation to provide the understory structure preferred by urban sensitive birds. Understanding the impacts of revegetation and weed control on different bird species is important information for practitioners to make restoration decisions about the allocation of funds for conservation action. This new knowledge can be used both for threatened species and invasive species management. K E Y W O R D SBayesian, hierarchical community model, urban conservation, urban restoration, urban sensitive species

Osmia cornifrons Radoszkowski (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) is utilized as an alternate pollinator to Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in early-season fruit crops. This study was conducted to investigate nesting activities and associated behaviors of O. cornifrons. Osmia cornifrons nesting activity was recorded by using a digital video recorder with infrared cameras. Nesting behavior of ten female O. cornifrons was observed, and the number of nesting trips per hour was recorded. Trends in daily activity were determined with regression analysis, and chi square analysis was used to determine if O. cornifrons spent a greater amount of time performing certain activities. The percentage of time required to gather nesting resources and complete nest construction activities was recorded from the video footage. Results of this study showed that pollen gathering was the most time-consuming gathering activity, requiring 221.6 ± 28.69 min per cell and cell provisioning was the most time-consuming intranest activity, requiring 28.9 min ± 3.97 min. We also found that O. cornifrons activity was correlated with time of day, temperature, and precipitation. Various nesting behaviors, including cell provisioning and partitioning, oviposition, grooming, resting and sleeping, nest-searching, and repairing behaviors, are described in this paper.

Aim:We aim to examine the relative importance of human activity-related and natural variables in shaping spatial patterns of alien bird species richness at the continental scale for Australia. We examine the drivers shaping establishment of alien birds in Australia in the framework of the human activity hypothesis and the biotic acceptance hypothesis (the "rich get richer" model of biotic invasion), and directly compare our results to Europe.Location: Continental Australia, Tasmania, Continental Europe, United Kingdom. Methods: We use compiled atlas data on alien bird richness in continental Australiaand Tasmania together and separately, records of known alien bird introduction events compiled from various sources and a suite of biogeographic variables to evaluate drivers of alien bird richness at a 50-km resolution in Australia. We use hierarchical portioning and spatial generalized linear models to quantify the relative contribution of each environmental variable to alien bird richness. We then compare our results directly to those from a previous continental-scale study in Europe and in the UK. Results:We identify 24 established alien bird species across Australia (including nearshore islands and Tasmania) and present a detailed map of alien bird richness in Australia. We discover that in Australia, native bird species richness and land cover heterogeneity are the strongest predictors of alien bird richness at a 50-km resolution, supporting the "rich get richer" model of species invasion. Main conclusions:Our results are contrary to Europe, where the human activity hypothesis was best supported. By performing a cross-continental comparison of drivers of alien bird richness, we show that processes shaping alien establishment and spread can vary across continents with variable human impact history and should be examined on a case-by-case basis before endorsing general hypotheses.