Abstract

Urban areas are increasing in size throughout the world, removing habitat for wildlife. The construction of urban greenways creates places of recreation for humans and potentially wildlife habitat, but the effects on wildlife vary from place to place. The city of Asheville, NC has plans to extend its greenway system, connecting the north and south greenways together. This study is designed to determine how the greenway system affects wildlife in Asheville, using the indicator species of birds as the focus. Bird species abundance, richness, and evenness along with vegetation surveys were measured across three different sites in Asheville, NC: an already established greenway site, a proposed greenway site, and a control street site. Along each site, there were five points 200 m apart where 10-minute fixed- radius point count surveys were taken during May, June, and July 2018. These surveys were repeated five times, recording all bird species seen or heard and categorizing them into different distance classes and time intervals to better estimate abundance. The vegetation surveys estimated the percent of invasive vines in 5 height strata at each point. The established greenway had the largest number of open canopy trees, meaning there were no vines engulfing the tree, while the unestablished greenway had significantly more invasive shrub and vine cover. The established greenway had a higher bird species abundance, richness, and evenness than the unestablished greenway site, and both had more diversity and abundance than the city street site. This study is in line with other studies that show the importance of greenways and green spaces in urban areas to help promote biodiversity.

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