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Urban bird diversity and ecosystem services are shaped by fine-scale habitat features

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Abstract

Biodiversity and ecosystem services are known to respond to large-scale urban planning, but the ecological role of fine-scale, designable habitat features remains poorly quantified We analysed bird communities across six Italian cities in relation to habitat and human-designed features measured at a 100-m scale, quantifying taxonomic diversity and trait-based proxies of cultural (e.g. aesthetic appeal) and regulating (e.g. seed dispersal, pest control) ecosystem services. Grass and water were key predictors: grass-rich areas supported more diverse bird communities, while aquatic features enhanced both diversity and regulating services. Impervious surfaces reduced diversity and cultural values, whereas intermediate vegetation height maximized diversity, highlighting the value of structural heterogeneity. Scenario modelling showed that expanding green areas improved avian diversity far more than increasing tree height, while green-area loss caused severe declines. Our findings emphasize that integrating blue-green infrastructures and habitat complexity into urban design is essential to foster biodiversity and ecosystem services, supporting the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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Data availability

Breeding bird data used for the analyses are available in the Zenodo repository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15343590). This data was originally collected and published in Alba et al. 202515 and was re-used here for additional analyses addressing different research questions.

Code availability

The underlying code for this study is not publicly available but may be made available to qualified researchers on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Luca Bajno for his help during fieldwork and land use analysis. R.A., V.F., G.A., F.C., I.R., E.C., and D.C. were funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.4 – Call for tender No. 3138 of 16 December 2021, rectified by Decree n.3175 of 18 December 2021 of Italian Ministry of University and Research funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU; Award Number: Project code CN_00000033, Concession Decree No. 1034 of 17 June 2022 adopted by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, CUP D13C22001350001, Project title “National Biodiversity Future Center – NBFC”. L.I. and D.R. were partly supported by Ecosistema MUSA – Multilayered Urban Sustainability Action (funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU under the NRRP M4C2 Investment Line 1.5: Strengthening of research structures and creation of R&D “innovation ecosystems”, set up of “territorial leaders in R&D”, project ECS_00000037). F.M. was supported by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) PhD fellowship 2020.06036.BD, DOI 10.54499/2020.06036.BD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Sciences and System Biology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Riccardo Alba, Fabio Marcolin, Valeria Ferrario, Francesca Cochis, Irene Regaiolo, Enrico Caprio & Dan Chamberlain

  2. NBFC, National Biodiversity Future Center, Palermo, Italy

    Riccardo Alba, Valeria Ferrario, Francesca Cochis, Irene Regaiolo, Enrico Caprio & Dan Chamberlain

  3. Forest Research Centre and Associated Laboratory TERRA, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal

    Fabio Marcolin

  4. CIBIO/InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal

    Fabio Marcolin

  5. CIBIO/InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, University of Porto, Vairão, Portugal

    Fabio Marcolin

  6. Dipartimento di Scienze e Innovazione Tecnologica, Università del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”, Alessandria, AL, Italy

    Giacomo Assandri

  7. Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Luca Ilahiane & Diego Rubolini

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  1. Riccardo Alba
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  3. Valeria Ferrario
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Contributions

R.A. and D.C. devised the study and the main conceptual ideas. G.A. and L.I. collected the data in the field, and R.A. designed the statistical methodology, performed the computations, prepared the figures and wrote the original draft, with inputs from D.C. All authors (R.A., F.M., V.F., G.A., L.I., F.C., I.R., D.R., E.C. and D.C.) read, contributed and approved the manuscript.

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Fabio Marcolin.

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Alba, R., Marcolin, F., Ferrario, V. et al. Urban bird diversity and ecosystem services are shaped by fine-scale habitat features.
npj Urban Sustain (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00322-9

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