Breeding birds and vegetation: A quantitative assessment

A 5-year study of urban/suburban breeding birds in Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.A., focused on the relationship between breeding birds and vegetation composition and structure. Over all habitats, and throughout the 5-year period, woody vegetation volume alone accounted for 50% of all the variation in breeding bird species number, and species richness kept increasing even at relatively high vegetation volumes. Sixty-five species of breeding birds were seen during the study, and these can be divided into three groups based on their overall abundance in the sample areas and on their amenability to management: one group is liable to occur anyway, whether or not woody vegetation volume is encouraged as a management strategy; the second group is liable to be well represented where vegetation volume is encouraged but not well represented where it is not, and is the group most suitably targeted for management; the last group consists of birds which are poorly adapted to built-up areas, and which — though detected in small numbers — are not judged likely to increase significantly even where vegetation volume is augmented.