Neotropical puzzles: Assessing the role of spatial arrangement and human induced disturbances on the avian diversity of greenspace patches

Given the rapid expansion of urbanization, there is an urgent need to understand the drivers of biodiversity decline specially in highly diverse ecosystems such as the Neotropical cities. Specifically, while the influence of ecological factors on biodiversity is well documented, empirical evidence on how specific urban design features such as the spatial arrangement of greenspace patches and sources of anthropogenic disturbance contribute to these patterns remains limited. Here, we assessed how the spatial arrangement of vegetation areas such as lawns, gardens or wooded areas within urban ecosystems (i.e., greenspace patches) relative to their distance to vegetation elements such as trees and shrubs and urban infrastructure and, human disturbances such as pedestrian and pet density associated with avian species richness, abundance, functional diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness by conducting point counts across five cities in the Colombian Andes. Greenspace patches closer to vegetation supported greater bird species richness, abundance and functional diversity. Interestingly, evolutionary distinctiveness was not associated with the ecological variables considered. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of (1) preserving greenspace patches with proximity to surrounding vegetation to maintain biodiversity within urban ecosystems and (2) incorporating taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional dimensions when assessing ecological dynamics as ecological changes may be reflected in certain diversity metrics but not in others. Thus, this study contributes to the understanding of urban biodiversity patterns by identifying key landscape features that support diverse avian communities, offering insights for biodiversity-informed urban planning in rapidly expanding tropical cities.