Cull Chloe A, Guest Mackenzie J, Frei Barbara, Ziter Carly D
Department of Biology, Concordia University, Montreal, QC Canada.
Science and Technology Branch, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Montreal, QC Canada.
Urban Ecosyst. 2025;28(2):24. doi: 10.1007/s11252-024-01669-0. Epub 2025 Jan 30.
The breeding period of birds is a critical and sensitive portion of the annual cycle. Understanding how human use of urban green spaces affects nest survival can improve our understanding of conserving breeding bird populations in cities and support science-based management of urban green spaces that benefit both people and nature. We conducted a nest survival field study between April and August of 2023 in multiple green spaces in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the country's second-largest city. We asked whether human presence (distance to trails and amount of human activity) influences the nest survival of four common open-cup nesting bird species: American robins (), gray catbirds (), Northern cardinals (), and yellow warblers (). We also asked if variables traditionally associated with nest survival, such as vegetation concealment and seasonality, would influence nest survival. Our analyses surprisingly revealed no significant influence of human activity, vegetation concealment, and seasonality on nest survival for our target species. We found for nests that did fail, nests established during the earlier part of the nesting period failed faster. American robin nests were the most successful of our study's four target species, whereas Northern cardinal nests were the least successful. Within the limitations of our study system, our findings suggest that human presence on trails is not negatively impacting the nesting success for our target bird species using urban green spaces. Our study provides integrated science advice to land managers so they can support opportunities for people to connect with nature without causing trade-offs with biodiversity conservation.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11252-024-01669-0.
鸟类的繁殖期是其年度周期中关键且敏感的阶段。了解人类对城市绿地的利用如何影响巢穴存活率，有助于我们更好地理解城市中繁殖鸟类种群的保护，并支持基于科学的城市绿地管理，实现人与自然的双赢。2023年4月至8月，我们在加拿大第二大城市魁北克省蒙特利尔的多个绿地开展了一项巢穴存活率实地研究。我们探究了人类活动（与步道的距离和人类活动量）是否会影响四种常见的开放式杯状筑巢鸟类的巢穴存活率，这四种鸟类分别是美洲知更鸟、灰猫嘲鸫、北美主红雀和黄腰林莺。我们还研究了传统上与巢穴存活率相关的变量，如植被隐蔽性和季节性，是否会影响巢穴存活率。令人惊讶的是，我们的分析结果显示，人类活动、植被隐蔽性和季节性对我们所研究的目标物种的巢穴存活率并无显著影响。我们发现，对于确实失败的巢穴，在筑巢期较早阶段建立的巢穴失败得更快。在我们研究的四种目标物种中，美洲知更鸟的巢穴成功率最高，而北美主红雀的巢穴成功率最低。在我们研究系统的限制范围内，我们的研究结果表明，步道上的人类活动并不会对利用城市绿地的目标鸟类的筑巢成功率产生负面影响。我们的研究为土地管理者提供了综合科学建议，以便他们能够支持人们与自然建立联系的机会，同时又不会在生物多样性保护方面做出妥协。
在线版本包含补充材料，可在10.1007/s11252-024-01669-0查看。
