Birds of a neotropical green city: an up-to-date review of the avifauna of the city of Xalapa with additional unpublished records

Although urbanization poses severe threats to biodiversity, some wildlife groups manage to thrive within urban areas. Among wildlife, birds are a highly diverse, charismatic and well-known group, establishing complex communities in human settlements around the world, making them suitable bioindicato...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inUrban ecosystems Vol. 17; no. 4; pp. 991 - 1012
Main Authors González-García, Fernando, Straub, Robert, García, José A. Lobato, MacGregor-Fors, Ian
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston Springer-Verlag 01.12.2014
Springer US
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Avifauna
Biodiversity
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Birds
Ecologists
Ecology
Environmental education
Environmental Management
Heterogeneity
human communities
Human settlements
Indicator species
Landscape ecology
Life Sciences
Nature Conservation
Studies
tropics
Urban areas
Urban Ecology
Urbanization
Wildlife
Mexico
Birds
Bird list
Urban ecology
New records
Diversity
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Summary:Although urbanization poses severe threats to biodiversity, some wildlife groups manage to thrive within urban areas. Among wildlife, birds are a highly diverse, charismatic and well-known group, establishing complex communities in human settlements around the world, making them suitable bioindicators. However, it is often difficult to have historical species lists that allow understanding current urban ecology trends. In this paper, we compile the available bird records, including unpublished information, for one of the best studied and well vegetated urban areas in México: the city of Xalapa. We gathered records for 329 species, representing ~30 % of the national avifauna in this medium-sized neotropical city. This important avian diversity in the city of Xalapa is mostly due to its environmental heterogeneity, underlining the relevance of its location, and the nature of its surroundings. The information provided in this paper will not only provide an environmental education baseline and represent a starting point for ornithologists, but will represent a reference document on the birds that have been recorded within the limits of Xalapa in the last three decades.
Bibliography:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11252-014-0370-3
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ISSN:1083-8155
1573-1642
DOI:10.1007/s11252-014-0370-3