Equipo de investigadores sobre Biodiversidad urbana. Ecología Animal en Áreas Urbanas (Animal ECOurban). Desarrollamos proyectos de investigación y divulgación científica sobre aves (ornitología), ins...

Considering urban landscape configuration is crucial for the development of sustainable cities. Traditional assessment methods for urban landscape configuration include estimating landscape metrics, such as housing density or greenspaces. However, avian indicators could represent an alternative method. These imply important advantages such as being able to be easily collected by citizens, or providing valuable information on socio-ecological processes associated to different urban landscape configurations. We identified avian indicators of two configurations of urban landscape: land-sharing (LSH), i.e. sprawling urbanization, and land-sparing (LSP), i.e. compact urbanization. We surveyed birds in nine European cities from Granada (southern Spain) to Rovaniemi (Arctic Circle). We followed a multi-scale (continent and city) and multi-season (breeding and winter) approach and used the indicator value (IndVal) method. At the continental scale, best LSH indicators were House Sparrows (Passer domesticus), followed by Eurasian Collared-Doves (Streptopelia decaocto) and European Greenfinches (Chloris chloris), while best LSP indicators were Common Chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs). Avian LSH/LSP indicators differed among cities probably because of factors such as differences in bird assemblages, urban vegetation management, and urbanization level. We found variation in avian indicators between seasons with fewer LSH/LSP indicators during winter. Interestingly, both LSH and LSP indicators were indicative of high environmental quality within European cities. What recommends for a heterogeneous landscape configuration that ultimately would benefit both citizens and urban wildlife. Overall, we provide a new tool for the monitoring of urban landscape configuration and its interaction with other socio-ecological factors (e.g. environmental quality, potential zoonoses, and human-bird interaction).