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Population dynamics and habitat preference of two urbanized Columbidae species and their nest predator in two settlement types Cover

Population dynamics and habitat preference of two urbanized Columbidae species and their nest predator in two settlement types

Open Access
|Dec 2020

Abstract

Since urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon, numerous species have gained the advantage of urban ecosystems. The Eurasian Collared Doves (Streptopelia decaocto) has become widespread all across Europe along with human-altered habitats. In general, population levels are stable but numbers have locally decreased in the past few decades. In parallel, a new wave of urbanization came forward, so Wood Pigeons (Columba palumbus) entered urban ecosystems alongside with other Columbidae species. In this paper, our primary goal was to find any connection between habitat availability factors such as coniferous tree density and the population dynamics of two urbanized species. A locally emerging corvid species, the Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix) was also taken into consideration in influencing tree-nesting doves and pigeons as a primary nest predator. During the research period, we aimed to express the differences in habitat structure of two urban ecotypes by nesting tree availability and structure and to prove the power of predator presence in sampling sites. Our results showed that residential areas have a higher proportion of coniferous trees, as well as the high preference of residential areas by Wood Pigeons and Eurasian Collared Doves.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/orhu-2020-0023 | Journal eISSN: 2061-9588 | Journal ISSN: 1215-1610
Language: English
Page range: 146 - 157
Submitted on: Jul 10, 2020
Accepted on: Oct 16, 2020
Published on: Dec 16, 2020
Published by: MME/BirdLife Hungary
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 2 issues per year

© 2020 Sámuel Zsolt Varga, Lajos Juhász, published by MME/BirdLife Hungary
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.