The impact of Urban residential areas on bird diversity: A case study from Harbin, Northeast China

Abstract

Urbanization has led to habitat loss and fragmentation. Residential areas, as a major product of this process, should be responsible for biodiversity restoration. We investigated resident birds and environmental features in 204 residential areas in Harbin, China, aiming to identify the critical influences of the residential environment on bird diversity. Based on landscape ecology theory, we categorized these residential areas through Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA), resulting in two types habitat context: Core Residential Areas (Core-RAs) and Isolated Residential Areas (Isolated-RAs). Then we explored the relationship between habitat configuration and bird diversity in two types of residential areas using Random Forest (RF) models to identify key environmental features. Building on this, we analyzed how “urban utilizer” and “urban avoider” bird species respond to environmental features using Redundancy Analysis (RDA) in two types of residential areas. This study has two main findings: (1) at the habitat context level, residential areas located around continuous or large habitats supported more stable bird communities compared to those surrounded by highly fragmented habitats or isolated within artificial environments; (2) at the habitat configuration level, the key environmental features affecting bird diversity are buildings and low vegetation, and the responses of “urban utilizer” and “urban avoider” bird species to residential environments differ. This study emphasizes the potential of residential environments to provide suitable habitats for native birds.