We investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics of a breeding bird community in the urbanized landscape of Lublin city (150 km2, 0.5 million inhabitants, SE Poland). We conducted 211 separate territory mapping surveys during 26 years (1982–2007) in 24 green areas (0.2–30.1 ha in size), distributed along an urbanization gradient. We recorded a total of 16,151 territories of 65 species. According to the estimated species richness, we detected all the species present in the studied plots. The three species community indices (species richness, Shannon-Wiener index and abundance – number of breeding pairs in census plot) increased with increasing tree stand age and area of the site, while it decreased as the proportion of biologically inactive areas increased. The three indices showed significant negative trends as the study period progressed. The mean decreasing rate was 0.2 species and 2.3 territories per year. Distance to the city centre and understorey cover negatively affected bird abundance, while they positively affected species richness and the Shannon index. Tree stand age seems to be the most important of the three indices among the analyzed explanatory variables. Our results show that the diversity of breeding avifauna in an urbanized landscape can be significantly shaped by the proper management of vegetation and size of green areas in the city. The long term decline of the three diversity indices seems to be the most important outcome of our study and requires further research and monitoring.
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