A systematic review of avian response to urbanization in China: Research trends, current insights, and future directions

IF 1.7 2区生物学 Q1 ORNITHOLOGY

Avian Research Pub Date : 2025-08-16 DOI:10.1016/j.avrs.2025.100292

Xingmin Chen, Yanping Wang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Urbanization is one of the most extreme forms of land-use alteration that is advancing across the world with unprecedented speed. As the largest developing country, China has developed a unique path through its high speed and large scale of urbanization, offering valuable research opportunities for avian ecology. However, a comprehensive review on how birds respond to urbanization in China is still lacking. Here, we systematically reviewed 274 studies published from 1962 to 2024 to determine the research trends, current insights, and future directions of avian response to urbanization in China. We synthesized research trends across four core avian response dimensions to urbanization—diversity, behavior, physiology, and life-history—and their applications in conservation strategy design. The number of publications in avian response to urbanization in China increased annually, and it is influenced by China's developing policies of urbanization. The results also showed an unbalanced geographical pattern of the publications, as the research preferences are relatively prevalent in the developed areas of eastern China. In contrast, there are insufficient studies in the emerging urbanizing areas in the western and northeastern China. Regarding the research contents, most existing studies are focusing on the patterns of bird diversity, while there are few studies on the underlying mechanisms, such as physiological adjustments and life-history strategies. In addition, passerines are the most frequent ones among the studied species. Integrating multidimensional urbanization indices and citizen science data are gradually becoming a new trend in recent years. Our study emphasizes that future studies should pay more attention to the response mechanism of birds in urbanizing processes, multidimensional and interdisciplinary studies, and the transformation of the research results into conservation practices.

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中国城市化对鸟类反应的系统回顾：研究趋势、当前见解和未来方向

城市化是土地利用变化的最极端形式之一，正以前所未有的速度在全球范围内推进。中国作为最大的发展中国家，其高速、大规模的城市化发展道路独具特色，为鸟类生态学的研究提供了宝贵的机遇。然而，关于中国鸟类如何应对城市化的全面综述仍然缺乏。在此，我们系统地回顾了1962年至2024年发表的274项研究，以确定中国鸟类对城市化反应的研究趋势、当前见解和未来方向。我们综合了鸟类对城市化的四个核心响应维度——多样性、行为、生理和生活史——及其在保护策略设计中的应用。鸟类对中国城市化反应的出版物数量逐年增加，这受到中国城市化发展政策的影响。研究结果还显示，中国东部发达地区的研究偏好相对普遍，论文发表的地理格局不平衡。相比之下，对西部和东北新兴城市化地区的研究则不足。就研究内容而言，现有的研究大多集中在鸟类多样性的模式上，而对其生理调节和生活史策略等潜在机制的研究较少。此外，雀形目是研究物种中最常见的一种。近年来，将多维城市化指数与市民科学数据相结合逐渐成为城市化研究的新趋势。未来的研究应关注鸟类在城市化进程中的响应机制，开展多维度、跨学科的研究，并将研究成果转化为保护实践。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Avian Research ORNITHOLOGY-

CiteScore

2.90

自引率

16.70%

发文量

456

审稿时长

46 days

期刊介绍： Avian Research is an open access, peer-reviewed journal publishing high quality research and review articles on all aspects of ornithology from all over the world. It aims to report the latest and most significant progress in ornithology and to encourage exchange of ideas among international ornithologists. As an open access journal, Avian Research provides a unique opportunity to publish high quality contents that will be internationally accessible to any reader at no cost.