Land use planning directly governs the location, size, and shape of urban parks, which can act as habitat refuges for wildlife. Thus, land use planning decisions made decades, or even centuries, ago likely affects modern day habitat availability for wildlife in cities. We sought to understand the role of these historical decisions on avian diversity between 1900 and 2020 to inform future biophilic urban planning efforts. We digitized historical maps of three mid-sized temperate U.S cities — Washington (DC), Minneapolis (MN) and Pittsburg (PA) — in five-year increments between 1900 and 2020, and calculated landscape metrics of each city’s park system over time. Historical Christmas Bird Count data in each city were used to estimate species and functional diversity metrics over the same 120-year period as a function of historical landscape metrics. Our results lend further support to the species-area relationship, as total greenspace area had the greatest positive relationship with species richness, functional divergence, and observations of species in different functional groups. Greenspace shape and connectivity also influenced some biodiversity metrics, but to a lesser degree than greenspace area. These findings demonstrate that historical land use decisions have a strong influence on the modern-day patterns of avian diversity in urban areas, which may help explain apparent differences in species assemblages across otherwise similar cities. As such, we suggest cities prioritize the establishment and protection of greenspaces to ensure lasting conservation of species across urban landscapes.

中文翻译：

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历史公园规划与现代城市鸟类多样性模式相关


土地利用规划直接控制城市公园的位置、规模和形状，这些公园可以作为野生动物的栖息地。因此，几十年甚至几个世纪前做出的土地利用规划决策可能会影响现代城市野生动物栖息地的可用性。我们试图了解 1900 年至 2020 年间这些历史决策对鸟类多样性的作用，为未来的亲生命城市规划工作提供信息。我们对 1900 年至 2020 年间美国三个中型温带城市——华盛顿 (DC)、明尼阿波利斯 (MN) 和匹兹堡 (PA) 的历史地图进行了数字化，每五年增量一次，并计算了每个城市公园系统随时间变化的景观指标。每个城市的历史圣诞节鸟类计数数据被用来估计同一 120 年期间的物种和功能多样性指标，作为历史景观指标的函数。我们的结果进一步支持了物种-面积关系，因为总绿地面积与物种丰富度、功能分化和不同功能组中物种的观察具有最大的正相关关系。绿地的形状和连通性也影响了一些生物多样性指标，但影响程度小于绿地面积。这些发现表明，历史上的土地利用决策对城市地区鸟类多样性的现代模式有很大影响，这可能有助于解释其他相似城市之间物种组合的明显差异。因此，我们建议城市优先考虑绿地的建立和保护，以确保城市景观中物种的持久保护。