Approaches to urban vegetation management and the impacts on urban bird and bat assemblages

Abstract

To balance the needs of people and biodiversity in cities, local governments are increasingly incorporating green spaces and urban greening initiatives into urban planning frameworks. Despite this, there is little information on which vegetation features or management actions are most useful in supporting biodiversity within these green spaces. We assess the effect of three vegetation management approaches that are commonly suggested to improve outcomes for urban biodiversity, including: (1) increasing the proportion of native vegetation; (2) increasing the density of trees, and (3) increasing the volume or complexity of understorey vegetation. We use a network of 39 urban green spaces (incl..