Fauna monitoring in urban forests of Slovenia: birds and insects

Maarten de Groot, Katarina Flajšman & Tomaž Mihelič

17.6.2014, Final conference Urban forests: Lungs of the city

Urban forests vs other forests

Habitat fragmentation

Habitat quality

Disturbance

Aims

• Monitoring hoverflies in urban forests as a indicator for biodiversity

– Investigate which methods are the best for monitoring hoverflies

• Setting up a network for monitoring birds in Ljubljana

• Investigating factors influencing the bird species assemblage

Hoverflies

Methods

• Transect

– 1x per month

– April - October

– 3 transects

– Only sunny days

• Malaise trap

– Every 2 weeks

– April - October

Trends Rožnik

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

nu

mb

er

of

ho

ve

rfli

es transect

2012

2013

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

1/4 21/5 10/7 29/8 18/10

nu

mb

er

of

ho

ve

rfli

es malaise trap

2012

2013

Trends Rožnik

0

5

10

15

20

25

transect malaise trap

Nu

mb

er

of

sp

ecie

s

increase

decrease

stable

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

transect malaise trap

nu

mb

er

of

sp

ecie

s

microphagous species

increase

decrease

stable

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

transect malaise trap

nu

mb

er

of

sp

ecie

s

phytophagous species

increase

decrease

stable

0

5

10

15

transect malaise trapn

um

be

r o

f sp

ecie

s predatory species

increase

decrease

stable

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

transect malaise trap

nu

mb

er

of

sp

ecie

s saproxylic species

increase

decrease

stable

Malaise trap vs transect

Trends Gameljne

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

April Maj Junij Julij Avgust September

nu

mb

er

of

ho

ve

rfli

es

Gameljne 1

Gameljne 2

Birds

Methods

• Methods

25m

50m

- 39 point counts - Three belts

Results

• 50 species

• 1246 individuals

number of species

cuckoos

herons

pigeons

song bird

woodpeckers

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

0 10 20 30 40 50

nu

mb

er

of

sp

ecie

s

sample number

Number of birds

periurban urban

05

10

15

20

num

ber

of bird s

pecie

s

forest park

05

10

15

20

num

ber

of bird s

pecie

s

0e+00 2e+06 4e+06 6e+06

05

10

15

20

surface of the forest patch (m3)

num

ber

of bird s

pecie

s

Not significant!

Urban vs peri-urban areas

-1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5

-0.6

-0.2

0.2

0.6

NMDS1

NM

DS

2

Black line = urban area Dashed line = peri-urban area

Forest vs parks

Black line = forest Dashed line = park

-1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5

-0.6

-0.2

0.2

0.6

NMDS1

NM

DS

2

Forest patch size

-1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5

-0.6

-0.2

0.2

0.6

NMDS1

NM

DS

2 surface

Conclusions

• Hoverflies: – Trends can be found within hoverflies

– Trends can compared between different groups

– Different methods should be used together

• Birds: – Establishment of a monitoring network

– Different species in urban and peri-urban forests

– Forest surface affect species assemblage

– In order to setup a monitoring network the above mentioned factors should be taken into account

Acknowledgments

• Cofinancers of EMonFUr

– Slovenian Ministery of Agriculture and Environment

– Municipality of Ljubljana

– LIFE+

• Project partners

• photographers