Artificial grass in parks as a potential new threat for urban bird communities

Green areas are key habitats for urban avifauna. Urban parks stand out from other anthropic habitats especially in providing trophic resources for many bird species. Consequently, modifications of these green zones can imply major changes in urban biodiversity. Potential pernicious urban remodelling is taking place in parks of eastern Spain because natural grass is being replaced with artificial grass to save water and to avoid management. This study aimed to determine whether remodelled parks with artificial grass harbour lower avian diversity (alpha, beta and gamma diversity) than traditional parks with natural grass. We surveyed 21 parks with artificial grass and 24 parks with natural grass in 18 towns of the Valencia Region in autumn 2020. In each park, we carried out 5-minute and 25-m radius point counts for determining bird species and their abundance. The effects of park area and grass type on alpha diversity (species richness, Shannon diversity index, Pielou's Evenness and total abundance) were tested by means of GLMs. Differences in beta diversity and its components (nestedness and turnover) were also analyzed with the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index. Gamma diversity was assessed by means of species accumulation curves. Finally, differences in community composition were tested by PERMANOVA and SIMPER tests. The parks with natural grass always harboured higher gamma diversity, species richness and abundance. Turnover was higher in parks with natural grass, whereas nestedness was higher in artificial grass parks. Differences in community composition were due mainly to abundance differences in common ground-feeding birds. We highlight that the trend of replacing natural by artificial grass in urban parks has harmful effects on urban bird communities and is a threat to bird conservation. Although artificial grass might save water, the effects on urban biodiversity should be carefully evaluated.