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This study investigates how different housing densities affect bird species and communities in urban fringe environments.

June 3, 2026Scientific Reports0 citationsOpen Access

Influence of new residential construction varying in housing density on bird species, human tolerance guilds, and communities

JDJack H. DeLap JMJohn M. Marzluff SCSarah J. Converse

Key Points

This study investigates how different housing densities affect bird species and communities in urban fringe environments.
Conducted a 12-year study in central Puget Sound, Washington, USA.
Fit single-species and multi-species occupancy models to evaluate bird responses to housing density.
Compared responses of bird communities in lower-intensity conservation developments vs. higher-intensity planned communities.
Overall bird community, avoiders, and adapters more common in lower-intensity developments.
87% of avoider species align with overall guild response to development type; 63% for adapters; 44% for exploiters.
No significant response detected for exploiter species regarding development type.

Abstract

Human population growth and changing settlement patterns fuel the development of urban fringe lands worldwide, with implications for biodiversity. We conducted a 12-year study of birds in the fast-developing urban fringe lands of the central Puget Sound region, Washington, USA, to examine the effect of development configuration on birds. We hypothesized that lower-intensity conservation developments, compared to higher-intensity planned community developments, would benefit the overall bird community, as well as native forest birds (avoiders of human development) and avian generalist species (adapters to human development), but that higher-intensity planned community developments would benefit synanthropic species (exploiters of human development). We fit single-species and multi-species occupancy models to test these hypotheses. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that a greater proportion of the overall community, avoiders, and adapters occupied lower-intensity conservation developments compared to higher-intensity planned community developments. However, we did not detect an effect of development type on the exploiter guild, and we found that species in the exploiter guild are variable in their response to the configuration of suburban developments. We also hypothesized that human tolerance guilds would be a useful predictor of individual species responses to development type. This hypothesis was somewhat supported: we found that, for avoiders, 87% of species in the guild had the same response to development type as the overall guild; for adapters, 63% had the same response as the overall guild, and for exploiters, only 44% had the same response as the overall guild. Our results indicate that the configuration of suburban developments can have a meaningful impact on bird communities, particularly on those species that are most sensitive to any level of development.

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