Ecological Correlates of Ecological Specialization of Avian Communities in University Campuses of China

With the rapid process of urbanization at a global scale, university campuses have been viewed as important urban green spaces for biodiversity conservation. However, little is known about the role of university campuses in protecting ecological specialists, the species usually vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbance. We assessed the associations between several ecological variates and ecological specialization of bird communities across 198 Chinese university campuses. A total of 398 bird species were recorded, including 109 diet specialist species and 104 foraging stratum specialist species. We found that the elevation of campuses was positively related to diet specialist species richness, and the campus area was positively related to foraging stratum specialist species richness. NDVI was positively associated with the community-wide foraging stratum specialization index, but negatively associated with the community-wide diet specialization index. Our results suggest that campuses with larger areas or located at high elevations play an important role in maintaining ecological specialization of bird communities.