Impact of Urban Landscape on Relative Abundance of Invasive Bird Species

Abstract

Invasive species owing to their habitat flexibility are able to exploit the ample feeding and nesting resources offered by urban landscapes. The current study was conducted in Jalandhar city of northwest India, where all the studied transects reported a relative abundance of more than 75% for invasive bird species. Tree species diversity was the most important habitat feature that positively affected bird species richness, species diversity and species evenness, while also reducing the relative abundance of invasive bird species. Hence a better planning of urban vegetative cover can help us maintain a more diverse urban avifauna.