Bird diversity and dissimilarity show contrasting patterns along heavy metal pollution gradients in the Urals, Russia

Abstract

The effects of industrial pollution on bird diversity have been widely studied using traditional diversity measures, which assume all species to be equivalent. We compared species richness and Shannon index with distance-based measures of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity (the abundance-weighted mean nearest taxon distances), which describe within-community dissimilarity at terminal branches. Analysis of dissimilarity can shed light on the processes underlying community assembly, i.e., environmental filtering decreases dissimilarity whereas competitive exclusion increases it. In the 2-year study near Karabash and Revda copper smelters in Russia, point counts of nesting birds and habitat descriptions were taken at 10 sites (40 plots) along each pollution gradient. The abundance and diversity of birds showed good repeatability in both regions. The total density of birds, number of species per plot, and Shannon diversity decreased at high toxic load in both regions. The taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic nearest taxon distances showed the same pattern within regions. Species dissimilarity within communities increased with pollution in Karabash (due to loss of functionally similar species), but did not change in Revda (due to mass replacement of forest species by species of open habitats). Pollution-induced changes in bird communities near Karabash were greater due to the stronger deterioration of the forest ecosystems and less favorable natural conditions (more arid climate, lower diversity and vitality of the tree stand and understorey) compared to Revda. This study emphasizes the need for a multi-level approach to the analysis of bird communities using traditional indices of diversity, functional, taxonomic, or phylogenetic distances between species and environmental variables.

Drivers of Bird Communities in an Urban Neighborhood Vary by Scale

“…A similar study found bird diversity declined with increasing distance from several stone crusher units, which correlated with changes in the air pollutants that were quantified in our study (Saha & Padhy, 2011). Bird densities and diversity also correlate with heavy metal pollution along a pollution gradient (Belskii & Mikryukov, 2018) and proximity to copper smelter sites (Eeva et al, 2012). Despite these past studies, our fine-scale measures of NO 2 and UFPs across our study site have allowed us to disentangle and evaluate the effects of air pollution versus other factors (i.e., vegetation) on bird communities.…”

Heavy metal accumulation as a threat to the endangered Egyptian vulture(Neophronpercnopterus L.) in Turkey

“…On the other hand, some metals are highly toxic even at low concentrations (Zahir et al, 2005). Heavy metal pollution is one of the most important threats to marine (Ling et al, 2018), freshwater (Abdelhady et al, 2019), and terrestrial (Belskii and Mikryukov, 2018) biodiversity. Exposure to heavy metals has resulted in growth and developmental abnormalities, detrimental effects on productivity, and death in animals (Migliarini et al, 2005;Burki, 2012;Hargitai et al, 2016;Pavlaki et al, 2016;Zeng et al, 2019).…”

Stochastic processes shape the functional and phylogenetic structure of bird assemblages at the mine area in southwest China

“…Thus, functional diversity (FD) and phylogenetic diversity (PD) have been increasingly advocated to quantify assemblage structures, which are deemed to better reflect the underlying ecological processes than species richness ( Cadotte et al 2011 ; Srivastava et al 2012 ). For example, environmental pollution affects assembly processes and results in functionally and phylogenetically non-random communities ( Belskii and Mikryukov 2018 ). Species richness, functional diversity, and phylogenetic diversity showed different patterns along the altitudinal gradient ( Dehling et al 2014 ).…”

“…Birds play an important role in ecosystem function and are strongly sensitive to the changes in their environment, which made them ideal taxa to be used in exploring the assembly processes and in assessing the effects of environmental changes on biological communities ( Naithani and Bhatt 2012 ; Chen et al 2019 ; Penjor et al 2021 ). It is commonly argued that metal pollution can pose stresses for birds, such as the decline of bird density, species richness, and diversity ( Eeva et al 2012 ; Belskii and Mikryukov 2018 ). In addition, trace metals pollution might also affect the assembly process of bird communities.…”

“…In addition, trace metals pollution might also affect the assembly process of bird communities. Because, the contamination could cause deterioration of forest ecosystems a nd reduce the food supply and habitat availability ( Smith et al 2005 ; Belskii and Mikryukov 2018 ). These deterministic processes such as interspecific competition due to reduced food resources and environmental filtration caused by habitat destruction could affect the assembly process of bird communities.…”