Effects of human disturbance on flush distances of tree sparrows (Passer montanus)
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Lin, Yan-Ling
Abstract
Nowadays, since biodiversity consideration is growing important concern for human well-being, urban areas are going to be target areas to implement ecological conservation. To understand what factors affecting wild animals to successfully live in urban areas is becoming a very important issue for urban ecology studies. Urban parks are not only as crucial habitats for urban wild animals but also the places for human recreation activities. Usage overlaps between wildlife habitat and human recreation can cause interactions or conflicts between human and animals. Urban parks provide recreational, flood control, educational and ecological functions; however, effects of vegetation structures, man-made structures and human activities on wild animals can be different at each park. Tree sparrow (Passer montanus) as a common native bird species was chosen as a study subject, because its life history is closely related to human activities, and the populations of common bird species, such as tree sparrow, are decreasing around the world. Therefore, tree sparrow will be a suitable species to observe urbanization effects on wild bird.
Four urban parks in Taipei, including Da-an forest park, 228 peace memorial park, Lin-sen Kang-le park, and Rong-xing Park, were selected as study sites. Field observations were conducted from March to November, 2011 to understand effects of park structures and human activities on tree sparrows. I recorded flush distances and micro-habitats surround tree sparrows each month. Aerial photography of different parks was used to calculate the vegetation cover and the percentage of impervious area. Finally, relationships between flush distances and different human disturbance factors were analyzed using Pearson correlation, principal component analysis and general linear model regression.
Based on observations of tree sparrow distributions in study sites, I found that there is resource partitioning between tree sparrow and human activities. Park area, the percentage of water cover, and the frequency of human feeding have significant positive relationships with the flock numbers of tree sparrow. There are different human disturbance factors affecting the flush distance of tree sparrow in each park. In addition, tree sparrow showed a different degree of habituation to human disturbance at different parks. Bush and man-made structure were found to reduce the distance of tree sparrow. Finally, tree sparrows in 228 peace memorial park showed the lowest flush distance by habituation, but their flush distance are longer in breeding season than in non-breeding season. This result suggests that human activities may still disturb tree sparrows’ activities in breeding season and pose potential threats on the reproduction of wildlife populations.
Subjects
urban ecology conservation
parkstructures
human activities
flush distance
tree sparrow (Passer montanus)
SDGs
Type
thesis
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