The composition of British bird communities is associated with long-term garden bird feeding

Abstract

There is a multi-billion dollar global industry dedicated to feeding wild birds in residential gardens. This extraordinary boost to food resources is almost certainly reshaping entire bird communities, yet the large-scale, long-term impacts on community ecology remain unknown. Here we reveal a 40-year transformation of the bird communities using garden bird feeders in Britain, and provide evidence to suggest how this may have contributed to national-scale population changes. We find that increases in bird diversity at feeders are associated with increasing community evenness, as species previously rarely observed in gardens have increasingly exploited the growing variety of foods on offer over time. Urban areas of Britain are consequently nurturing growing populations of feeder-using bird species, while the populations of species that do not use feeders remain unchanged. Our findings illustrate the on-going, gross impact people can have on bird community structure across large spatial scales.

Urbanization and Human Population Favor Species Richness of Alien Birds

“…For example, millions of households sustain bird feeders in their gardens, providing huge quantities of supplementary food to birds in North America [57,58]. Therefore, by providing food to birds throughout the year, urban areas attract birds, given that birds possess traits to adapt to human-disturbed habitats; this is particularly manifested in alien species, but also true for many common native species [59,60]. Furthermore, birds are strongly associated with vegetation structure and composition, and increased habitat heterogeneity might allow both the regional and local coexistence of native and alien birds [29,61].…”

Arthropod abundance modulates bird community responses to urbanization

“…We speculate that the presence of important resources for urban birds, such as feeders or artificial nesting sites in highly urbanized areas (personal observation) (Kark et al, 2007;Plummer et al, 2019), might explain this pattern for most of the species.…”

“…For example, competition for limited resources modifies the community by favouring a higher abundance of the successful competitors, which will displace other species (Goldshtein et al, 2018;Robertson et al, 2013). Regarding trophic interactions, the ability of some species to exploit food resources under disturbance affects community composition (Galbraith et al, 2015;Planillo et al, 2015; K. E. Plummer et al, 2019). Availability of invertebrate prey, mainly arthropods, also determines the reproductive success of many bird species inhabiting anthropogenic habitats and shapes the long-term viability of the populations (Peach et al, 2008;Seress et al, 2012Seress et al, , 2018.…”

Flight responses of eastern gray kangaroos to benign or harmful human behavior

“…However, where wildlife persist, they are increasingly challenged by having to accommodate humans in their daily routine (Soulsbury & White, ). For some, this creates novel opportunities to gain resources like exploiting waste and refuse (Gabrey, ; Ross, ), opportunities to share homes (Russell, Bowman, Herbert, & Kohen, ), and many positive interactions like supplemental feeding (Orams, ; Plummer, Risely, Toms, & Siriwardena, ). In contrast, many species find sharing space with humans makes life fraught and stressful (Ciuti et al, ).…”

“…| 13825 AUSTIN ANd RAMP like supplemental feeding (Orams, 2002;Plummer, Risely, Toms, & Siriwardena, 2019). In contrast, many species find sharing space with humans makes life fraught and stressful (Ciuti et al, 2012).…”