DOI: 10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvfh
title: Data from: Evaluating the potential for bird-habitat models to support biodiversity-friendly urban planning

description: Urban expansion poses a major threat to wildlife populations.
 Biodiversity-friendly urban landscapes could deliver benefits for both
 wildlife and people, by incorporating conservation and ecosystem services
 objectives. Well-designed urban developments could also soften the
 ecological impacts of urbanisation. However, delivering urban landscapes
 that integrate biodiversity requirements effectively remains challenging.
 Ecological models, designed to predict wildlife population responses to
 alternative urban designs, could prove effective in supporting the
 creation of biodiversity-friendly urban landscapes. Here, we combine
 national-scale bird abundance data with high resolution, spatially
 explicit habitat data to characterise relationships between bird densities
 and urban landscape form in Britain. From these analyses and
 cross-validation, we evaluate the potential for well-parameterised,
 species-specific models to be used to predict bird densities in novel or
 modified urban areas. Our analyses indicate that responses of bird
 abundance to urban habitat are species-specific and complex, with few
 variables consistently affecting a large proportion of species. However,
 contiguous areas of greenspace within urban sites are preferential for
 accommodating breeding birds, compared to a more fragmented arrangement of
 multiple, small greenspace patches. In combination, the bird-habitat
 relationships identified could successfully predict observed variation in
 abundance for most bird species considered. Further evaluation of habitat
 descriptor variables, spatial scales of species’ habitat use and
 analytical modelling approaches may be needed to improve the predictive
 ability of bird-habitat models for certain species, particularly
 waterbirds and those observed less frequently in urban areas. Synthesis
 and applications. We modelled breeding bird abundance in built-up areas
 with respect to the characteristics and contexts of urban environments.
 While most variables were important for multiple species, responses
 overall were species-specific, so simple assemblage metrics, like
 diversity, will not describe the variation in bird communities well.
 However, the results illustrate the potential of an evidence-based,
 spatially explicit evaluation of urban development impacts on
 biodiversity, by predicting the consequences for bird numbers. Subject to
 verification of predictive ability, practitioners can apply the models to
 compare, for example, land-sparing and sharing within developments, or to
 quantify the biodiversity requirements for effective offsetting. This
 would be facilitated by incorporation into an online tool allowing
 user-determined input scenarios.
description: <strong>readme.txt</strong>
 Information necessary of the re-use of the files below, including
 descriptions of dataset variables.
 <strong>DATASET: 
 Urban_metrics_per_site.csv</strong> The
 characteristics of urban sites, derived from Breeding Bird Survey
 (BBS) monitoring locations, used in the analysis presented in the
 paper. <strong>DATASET: 
 Birds_per_site.csv</strong> The abundances of 57
 bird species per urban site, derived from Breeding Bird Survey (BBS)
 monitoring, used in the analysis presented in the paper. 
 <strong>DATASET: 
 Bird_species_list.csv</strong> Species-specific
 information for the 57 bird species included in the analysis presented in
 the paper. <strong>DATASET: 
 Bird-habitat_model_results.xlsx</strong> Summary
 statistics and species-specific parameter estimates and
 significance levels resulting from all univariate modelling of
 bird-habitat relationships presented in the paper.
 <strong>TEXT FILE: 
 Rcode_for_bird-habitat_modelling.txt</strong> R
 code used to develop, run and evaluate the bird-habitat models presented
 in the paper.