BIRD AND INSECT DIVERSITY ALONG AN URBAN DISTURBANCE GRADIENT Christine Barrie Department of Natural Resource Sciences McGill University, Montreal August 2013 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science © Christine Barrie, 2013 i Table of Contents LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. v LIST OF APPENDICES .......................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... vii PREFACE ............................................................................................................................. ix CONTRIBUTION OF AUTHORS ............................................................................................. x ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................... xi RÉSUMÉ ............................................................................................................................. xii CHAPTER 1........................................................................................................................... 1 General Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Indicator taxa .................................................................................................................. 1 Examples of uses and studies of indicators .................................................................... 3 Criteria for selecting an indicator ................................................................................... 5 The urbanization gradient: how is it measured? ............................................................ 6 OId fields along the urbanization gradient ..................................................................... 6 Impacts of urbanization on wildlife ................................................................................ 8 Potential biodiversity and/or urbanization indicators .................................................. 11 Birds .......................................................................................................................... 12 Butterflies .................................................................................................................. 15 Carabidae .................................................................................................................. 17 Syrphidae .................................................................................................................. 19 Other flies .................................................................................................................. 21 Bees ........................................................................................................................... 24 Objectives...................................................................................................................... 28 References .................................................................................................................... 28 CONNECTING STATEMENT ................................................................................................ 35 CHAPTER 2: BIRD AND INSECT DIVERSITY ALONG AN URBAN DISTURBANCE GRADIENT 36 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... 36 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 37 Materials and Methods ................................................................................................. 39 Study sites ................................................................................................................. 39 ii Site and surrounding land use variables ................................................................... 39 Breeding bird surveys................................................................................................ 40 Fall migration surveys ............................................................................................... 41 Insect sampling ......................................................................................................... 42 Statistical analyses .................................................................................................... 43 Results ........................................................................................................................... 45 Surrounding land use ................................................................................................ 45 Bird and insect diversity and community composition along an urban disturbance gradient ..................................................................................................................... 46 Do species respond in similar ways to increasing urbanization? .............................. 55 Indicator species analysis .......................................................................................... 56 Discussion ...................................................................................................................... 56 Surrounding land use categories .............................................................................. 56 Trends in measures of diversity and community composition along the gradient .. 57 The P3+R1 cluster ..................................................................................................... 67 Potential as indicators ............................................................................................... 68 The role of old fields along all parts of the gradient ................................................. 70 Recommendations for future work .............................................................................. 71 References .................................................................................................................... 71 CHAPTER 3....................................................................................................................... 112 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 112 iii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Attributes of study sites ................................................................................... 77 Table 2.2: Land use classes and definitions ...................................................................... 78 Table 2.3: Content of each of the four axes derived using PCA at each different buffer length ................................................................................................................................ 79 Table 2.4: Observed species richness (S ), number of individuals detected/specimens (obs) collected (N), Simpson’s diversity (SD), and ACE for each taxon per site ......................... 80 Table 2.5: Results of ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis tests for each taxon comparing species richness and number of individuals detected/specimens collected between sites in different urbanization treatments .................................................................................... 82 Table 2.6: Results of ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis tests for comparing species richness and number of individuals detected/specimens collected between sites in different LUCs .. 83 Table 2.7: Correlations between taxa of various measures ............................................. 84 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Locations of study sites on and near Montreal Island, Quebec, Canada ....... 87 Figure 2.2: NMDS of sites according to surrounding land use ......................................... 88 Figure 2.3: Cluster analysis dendrograms ......................................................................... 89 Figure 2.4: NMDS ordination of sphaerocerids (Diptera: Sphaeroceridae) by site. ......... 92 Figure 2.5: NMDS ordination of grass flies (Diptera: Chloropidae) .................................. 93 Figure 2.6: Canonical Correspondence Analysis of chloropids (Diptera: Chloropidae) .... 94 Figure 2.7: Canonical Correspondence Analysis of chloropids (Diptera: Chloropidae) with species optimized .............................................................................................................. 95 Figure 2.8: NMDS two-dimensional ordination of all insect taxa ..................................... 96 v LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 2.1: Absolute area of different land use categories in buffers of 200 to 2000 m surrounding each site........................................................................................................ 97 Appendix 2.2: Breeding birds surveyed at each site ........................................................ 99 Appendix 2.3: Insect species and morphospecies collected from each site .................. 101 Appendix 2.4: Birds surveyed during fall migration ....................................................... 111 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a great deal to my supervisor, Terry A. Wheeler, for helping me weave my interests into a sound ecological question, for allowing me to work with a diversity of taxa, for having confidence in my abilities and for copious amounts of advice. I would also like to thank all who helped me in the numerous tasks required to complete this project. Sabrina Rochefort and Élodie Vajda were tremendous help in the field during the insect sampling. Len Barrie, my father, also provided help in the field in terms of insect sampling, breeding bird surveys and fall bird migration surveys, as well as driving. David Bird helped me with refining my bird survey methods and offering various references. Amélie Grégoire Taillefer provided much advice about statistics, as well as checked and identified Dolichopodidae. Henri Goulet patiently checked and identified my Carabidae. Kyle Martin provided help with bee identification by offering keys, suggestions and corrections. Sophie Cardinal helped with the checking and identification of Megachilidae. Cory Sheffield helped by checking and identifying the bees. Terry A. Wheeler checked both Chloropidae and Sphaeroceridae. Andrew Gonzalez and Maria Dumitru helped tremendously by providing a land use map of the Montreal area (funded by Ouranos, project #554014). Guillaume Larocque consulted with me multiple times and taught me how to use QGIS and GRASS. I want to thank the several people involved in providing permission to sample on my sites: Marie-Hélène Gauthier for Angell Woods; François St-Martin for Terra Cotta Park; Denis Fournier for Bois-de-la-Roche and Bois-de-Liesse; Anne Godbout for Morgan Arboretum; the people at McGill Bird Observatory for Stoneycroft; Nathalie Rivard for Îles-de-Boucherville and Mont Saint-Bruno; David Maneli for Mont Saint-Hilaire. This project was supported financially by an NSERC grant to Terry A. Wheeler, as well as a FQRNT Masters Research scholarship, a Margaret Duporte Fellowship, E. Melville Duporte Award, and a Graduate Excellence Fellowship (McGill University) to Christine Barrie. I would also like to thank everyone at the Lyman Entomological Museum who offered advice and support during the course of my degree: Stéphanie Boucher, Chris Borkent, Laura Timms, Amélie Grégoire Taillefer, Anna Solecki, Meagan Blair, Heather Cumming, vii Alyssa MacLeod, Sabrina Rochefort and Élodie Vajda. Laura Timms, Amélie Grégoire Taillefer, Chris Borkent, and Sabrina Rochefort looked over previous versions of my thesis and offered incredibly useful advice. Anna Solecki and Stéphanie Boucher carefully edited my résumé. I greatly appreciate the support of my parents, Judy Deachman and Len Barrie, as well as my partner, Robert Anderson. viii PREFACE This thesis is composed of three chapters, one of which is an original manuscript that will be submitted for publication in a refereed journal. Chapter 1 This chapter is a general introduction and literature review. Chapter 2 This chapter is a manuscript in preparation for submission to a refereed journal: Barrie CL, Wheeler TA. Bird and insect diversity along an urban disturbance gradient. Chapter 3 This chapter is a general conclusion. ix CONTRIBUTION OF AUTHORS Christine Barrie planned the project and carried out field sampling, specimen preparation and identification, statistical analysis and manuscript writing. Dr. T.A. Wheeler supervised the research, helped with identification of Chloropidae and Sphaeroceridae, and edited the manuscript. Dr. T.A. Wheeler also provided lab space and equipment, field work equipment, and financial support to attend conferences. x