How urban green space typologies and attributes influence avifauna in rapidly urbanizing Afrotropical cities

Urban green spaces serve as critical refugia for bird conservation in an increasingly urbanized world. To understand how these spaces support avian communities in Afrotropical cities, we investigated bird assemblages across 40 urban green spaces in Jos-Plateau and Abuja-FCT in central Nigeria, covering a total of 91 transects (45.5 km), to examine how green space typologies and attributes influence avian biodiversity. We conducted bird surveys using line transects across recreational parks, wildlife parks, streetscapes, and institutional green spaces for one year. Green space attributes (vegetation and anthropogenic) were measured within quadrats along transects. We recorded 15,405 individual birds representing 146 species from 56 families. Statistical analyses revealed that wildlife parks maintained substantially greater avian species richness, abundance and diversity compared to other green space types. We found that native vegetation hosted greater bird diversity than exotic-dominated areas, while mixed vegetation showed intermediate values. Avian community metrics were positively associated with plants in flower, tree species richness and litter cover, but negatively impacted by pedestrian and vehicular count. No evidence for a significant effect of NDVI in predicting avian community composition was observed, suggesting that local vegetation structure may be more important than overall greenness. We recommended that conservation efforts and management strategies of urban green spaces in Afrotropical cities should prioritize habitat heterogeneity and implement thoughtful design that balances public access with biodiversity conservation. The clear benefits of native vegetation for avifauna also suggest that indigenous plant species should be prioritized in urban greening initiatives.