Park life: Tiny parks may add up to a big impact

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-09-13 09:01

International

PHOTO: Mike Benna/Unsplash

Experts traditionally thought one big park would overall support more biodiversity than several tinier parks adding up to the same size. However, new US research has challenged that idea when it comes to city parks and birds. Researchers looked at the seasonal diversity of birds in 475 parks in 21 US cities, finding that groups of small parks consistently had higher species richness and were inhabited by rarer birds than large parks of equivalent area. Larger parks did support other measures of bird biodiversity, so the authors say both sizes play an important role. They suggest urban planners consider the implications of park size on regional conservation goals.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Urban planners often rely on the principle that a single large park should contain more species than several small parks of the same total area. We test the quality of this principle for birds in 475 parks in 21 US cities. Collections of small parks were a reliable source of species richness driven by higher species turnover and a greater prevalence of rare species. Collections of both small and large parks supported higher phylogenetic and functional diversity. Our findings emphasize the need for city specific prioritization strategies where multiple measures of bird diversity are examined across parks and seasons.

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Research The Royal Society, Web page URL after publication

Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Cornell University, USA

Funder: The Wolf Creek Charitable Foundation; the National Science Foundation

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