Green Space and Water Body Supports Bird Species Diversity Across Urban Parks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3312310/v1

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Green Space and Water Body Supports Bird Species Diversity Across Urban Parks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3312310/v1

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Urbanisation growth is very rapid worldwide, where more than half of the population live in urban areas. The development of infrastructures to comply with dense population in cities has threatened the biodiversity in urban areas. Bird communities are important in maintaining biodiversity as they are very sensitive to any change in the environment. However, their numbers have decreased as more of native vegetations were destroyed. Urban researchers have been focusing on the landscape matrix in urban parks as a way to conserve bird diversity in urban areas. However, studies on the area are still scarce. In this study, we aim to identify the landscape attributes that influence bird diversity in urban parks. we have recorded a total of 537 individuals from 46 species and 24 families from three urban parks (Taman Tasik Permaisuri, Taman Pudu Ulu and Taman Datuk Keramat). Five landscape attributes that could potentially affect the avian diversity in urban parks have been shortlisted. The multiple regression found that green spaces and water bodies attributes play important roles that influence avian species richness and abundance in urban parks of Kuala Lumpur. We also proved that the landscape attributes of urban park are more important that its size in increasing bird composition and diversity. Further studies can be done on more landscape attributes that can contribute to a better planning and development of functional urban parks for urban conservation.

Avian

diversity

landscape

parks

vegetation

Urbanization is the leading factor of species declination in highly populated cities (Czech et al., 2000; McKinney, 2002). In order to develop more industrial and housing areas to support the dense population, a lot of areas with native vegetation and habitat heterogeneity have been destroyed (Boori et al., 2015; Rosenberg et al., 2019). The reduction in vegetation and habitat heterogeneity will result in the reduction of bird diversity as birds are important biological indicators as they are very sensitive to any changes or disturbance in an environment (Camacho-Cervantes et al., 2018; Gibson et al., 2011). Urban parks acts as a natural habitat in urban areas, providing basic necessities to birds and improving biodiversity as they increase the complexity of biotic communities (Mansor et al., 2012). Therefore, attention should be given to maintain biodiversity to build and design urban parks that can provide basic necessities for bird communities.

Landscape matrix has been proven to be an important key factor in determining avian diversity in urban parks (Jasmani et al., 2020). Design modifications and management strategies can be used to increase the presence of generalist species in urban parks. Mohd-Taib et al., 2022 found that green spaces and water bodies are important for avian diversity as they can provide roosting areas and plenty of food sources. Green spaces comprising river corridors and roadside reserves are associated with the increase of bird abundance in urban parks (Puan et al., 2019) They also contribute to species richness and avoid domination of urban birds that forage at bird feeders or exploit human-related resources (Aida et al., 2016). However, studies on how these landscape matrices could affect bird diversity in urban parks are still scarce.

In this study, we aim to identify the landscape attributes that influence bird diversity in urban parks. The sampling sites are located at highly urbanized areas of Kuala Lumpur. Several attributes had been measured including park area, green spaces, grey spaces, percentage of green spaces and water bodies. The early hypothesis suggests that birds in parks with higher park area, green spaces, and water bodies are highly diverse as they can provide necessities for the birds. Therefore, the present study will highlight the important factors that should be considered by urban developers in building functional urban parks while conserving urban biodiversity.

Study Area

The study was conducted at three urban parks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur is the capital city of Malaysia, with the total area of 243 km² that is compromised by 75.1% of urban area. It has an estimated population of 1.9 million people (Department of Statistics Malaysia 2020). The study locations are at Taman Tasik Permaisuri (TPP), Taman Pudu Ulu (TPU) and Taman Datuk Keramat (TDK), all located at highly urbanized area in the city (Fig. 1). These urban parks are accessible to the public and are managed by local authorities.

Bird sampling and study design

Bird observation was done within three times for each site from October 2022 to February 2023, within the monsoon season (n = 3). Point counts within 200 m radius were used for the observation. The distance between each point was at least 200 m to avoid repetitions. Surveys were done when birds are active from 0730 h to 1200 h, excluding days with bad weather conditions like rain and high winds. Weekends were also excluded to avoid interruptions with high human activities. The observation was conducted by using binoculars with \(10\times 42\) resolution (Minox BV). Bird observations are recorded for their aesthetic value. Raptors, swifts, and escapees are excluded from the data.

Measurement of landscape attributes

Five landscape attributes were estimated. The measurement for the different landscape attributes were done based on (Mohd-Taib et al., 2022) with modifications by using Google My Maps (Google Inc, USA). The area (m²) of the landscape attributes was measured by building polygons following their respective perimeters. The included landscape attributes were park area, green space area, grey area, percentage of green area and water body area. The green space area includes all ground vegetations including grass, woody trees, and flowering trees. The grey area are the parts of the urban parks apart from the green space area, such as parking lots, jogging tracks, buildings, and playgrounds.

Data analysis

PAST 4.03 (Palaeontological Association 2020) was used to run statistical analysis to determine the biodiversity indices (Dominance index [D], Shannon index [H’] and Evenness index) and to build the individual-based rarefaction curve for each sampling site. Then, multiple regression was used to determine the significant landscape attributes that significantly influenced the abundance, species richness and biodiversity of birds in the urban parks by using SPSS. Before running the mentioned analyses, Shapiro-Wilk normality test was run on the bird abundance and species richness data (p > 0.05) and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare bird abundance and species richness between the three urban parks (p < 0.05).

Species Richness and Diversity of Urban Birds

A total of 537 individuals from 46 species and 24 families were recorded across urban parks (Supplementary material). All the species included were listed as least concern except two near threatened species, Black-bellied Malkoha (Phaenicophaeus diardi) and Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala), and one vulnerable species, Javan Myna (Corvus splendens) (IUCN Red List 2022). The urban park with the most abundance is TPP with 341 individuals, followed by TPU at 135 individuals and TDK at 62 individuals. There is a significant difference between the abundance of birds in the three parks (F = 4.551, p = 0.012). TPP has the highest species richness with 34 species recorded. It also has the highest Shannon index which implies that it has the most diverse species compared to TPU and TDK. All three urban parks show low number of dominance and moderate value of evenness. All the measured diversity indices are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Bird diversity indices in sampling sites
	TPP	TPU	TDK
No. of species	34	20	13
No. of family	22	13	9
No. of individuals	341	135	62
Dominance (D)	0.1106	0.1651	0.2088
Shannon (H’)	2.66	2.243	1.938
Evenness	0.4206	0.4956	0.534

The rarefaction curve for the three sampling sites is shown in Fig. 2. The curve for TDK is still increasing, which shows that the number of species might still increase if the sampling is continued. Meanwhile, the curve for TPP and TPU is less steep and reaching asymptote with means that most of bird species in the urban parks had been recorded. At the interpolation of 13 individuals (TDK), TPP has the highest number of species (17.709\(\pm\)2.026), followed by TPU (14.787\(\pm\)1.459). The difference between the species richness in the three urban parks is significant (p < 0.05).

Relationship between species richness and abundance with landscape attributes

The landscape attributes’ influence on bird abundance and species richness were tested by using multiple linear regression. In determining species richness, only 2 out of 5 landscape attributes have significant effect on the data, which are green space area and water bodies. They both have positive effect on species richness (R² = 1.000). The R² value shows that the regression model is the perfect fit for the data. Meanwhile, the bird abundance is also significantly influenced by the same 2 attributes, green space area and water bodies (R² = 1.000). Both attributes showed significantly positive effect on bird abundance. The coefficients and standard errors are presented in Table 2.

Table 2

Multiple regression of landscape attributes to species richness and abundance of birds
	B	SE	β	R²	\(Δ\)R²
Species richness
Model				1.000	1.000
Constant	11.248	0.000
Green space area	0.649	0.000	1.016
Water bodies	0.024	0.000	0.025
Abundance
Model				1.000	1.000
Constant	10.155	0.000
Green space area	9.258	0.000	1.071
Water bodies	1.547	0.000	0.121
Model= “enter” method in SPSS Statistics, SE = standard error; B = unstandardized regression coeffecient; β = standardized coeffecient; R² = coeffecient of determination; ∆R² = adjusted R²

Bird species richness and abundance in urban parks

We found that the bird species richness and abundance in the three urban parks are significantly different. As predicted, TPP has the highest number of species and abundance as it is the largest park with the highest green space area at 34887 m² while TDK recorded the lowest number of species and abundance as it has the total green area of only 1894 m². Developers and urban landscapers should focus on a functional landscape matrix, especially on green space area to attract more birds and increase bird composition (Mohd-Taib et al., 2022; Puan et al., 2019)

TPP has higher bird diversity than TPU and TDK. It recorded more water bird species compared to the other two parks, such as Black-crowned Night-Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), Gray Heron (Ardea cinerea) and Yellow Bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis), as it has a huge lake with several islands in it. Presence of these water birds are important as biological indicators as water birds responds to contamination and deterioration of ecosystem quality (Rahman & Ismail, 2018). Although the number of water birds recorded in the park was high, the dominance index is low. There is no species dominating all the three urban parks and the species are moderately even.

Landscape attributes influence on bird diversity

This study showed that some landscape attributes significantly impacted the species richness and abundance of birds in urban parks. Out of 5 attributes, green space area and water bodies have proven to influence the species richness and bird abundance. Green space area has vegetations that can provide food and shelter to the birds (Aida et al., 2016), while also providing sufficient and suitable place for birds to breed (Carbó-Ramírez & Zuria, 2011). On the other hand, water bodies provide food abundance such as fish, algae and insects for the birds hence allowing the presence of water birds and vegetations like shrubs and trees (Chamberlain et al., 2007; Pšeničková & Horák, 2022). It also becomes a place for interspecific and intraspecific interaction and competition for valuable resources (Cen et al., 2020). The other attributes (park area, percentage of green space area and grey space) were excluded from the regression model, as they are highly correlated with green space area, and multicollinearity can lead to building unreliable models (Lukman et al., 2023).

Urban parks are important to enhance biodiversity and provide green spaces when cities are becoming denser and more developed (Jasmani et al., 2020). In this study, green space area and water body has proven to be a significant influence in increasing avian species richness and abundance in urban parks of Kuala Lumpur. We continue to prove that the landscape attributes of an urban park are more important that its size in increasing bird composition and diversity. Further studies can be done on more landscape attributes that can contribute to a better planning and development of functional urban parks for urban conservation.

No ethics approval and competing interest is relevant to the study. The study was funded by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) under the grant GUP-2021-048. The first author was involved in data collection and manuscript writing while the corresponding author has been supervising the whole project. The datasets are available and can be accessed by requesting it to the corresponding author.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This project is funded by Universiti Malaysia (UKM) under the grant GUP-2021-048.We would like to thank Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) for supporting and assisting us throughout the sampling for this project. We also thank Wildlife Research Group of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) for helping us throughout the sample collection, material preparation and data analysis.

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No competing interests reported.

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Green Space and Water Body Supports Bird Species Diversity Across Urban Parks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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Abstract

Figures

INTRODUCTION

MATERIALS AND METHOD

Study Area

Bird sampling and study design

Measurement of landscape attributes

Data analysis

RESULTS

Species Richness and Diversity of Urban Birds

Relationship between species richness and abundance with landscape attributes

DISCUSSION

Bird species richness and abundance in urban parks

Landscape attributes influence on bird diversity

CONCLUSION

Declarations

References

Additional Declarations

Supplementary Files

Status:

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