Study: Urban sprawl not so bad for birds

SEWANEE, Tenn., Jan. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. urban sprawl might not be as harmful to wildlife as previously thought, a University of the South study suggested.

Using field surveys and digital maps of habitat, biology professors David Haskell and Jonathan Evans -- of the university's Landscape Analysis Laboratory -- compared the diversity of bird populations in natural forests, tree plantations and urban sprawl, or "exurban" areas, along the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee.

The scientists, in collaboration with Juniata College environmental sciences professor Neil Pelkey, found tree plantations had substantially less bird population diversity than did native forests and exurban areas. In some cases, exurban areas had more diversity than did even the native forests.

"These findings suggest urban sprawl is not all bad for wildlife," Haskell said. "This turns conventional wisdom about wildlife conservation on its head (since) scientists had assumed tree plantations were preferable to exurban areas for wildlife conservation.

"This study firmly refutes this assumption, and has important implications for government policies, many of which subsidize plantations and penalize sprawl in the name of wildlife conservation."

The research was published last month in the open access journal Public Library of Science.