Wild in the City

November 22, 12:28 PMPhoenix Travel ExaminerJay Hammond

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"Urbanization turns large areas of wild land into cities and suburbs, and has a profound effect on native speicies, changing where they live and how they interact," says Paige Warren, an urban ecologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass). "Knowing how these organisms relate to each other and their environment is crtical to developing sound conservation strategies."

She was talking about a study into how plants and animals adapt themselves into landscapes dominated by human recently conducted by researchers at UMass and Arizona State University (ASU). The study examined bird count data collected in the Phoenix area over a two-year period and untilized computer models first developed for mineral mapping. The results revealed striking trends in the distribution of birds in the Phoenix metropolitan area, including surrounding agricultural land and remnants of the Sonoran Desert. Analutical work was done by ASU's Jason Walker. The research team also included Robert Balling, John Brigs and Elizabeth Wenz, all of ASU, and Madhusudan Katti of California State University, Fresno.

"Usually we can look at the characteristics of a habitat, like food and water availability or types of shelter, and predict whether a certain species would be found there, but urban ecology is a young science, and we don't have a sense of what features an urban habitat should have to support different species," Warren says.

Nonetheless, some of the study's finding seem almost predicatble. Pigeons, for instance, adhered strongly to the dowtown Phoenix area while phainopepla, a crested bird native to the desert and dry woodlands demonstrated no ability to penetrate the city successfully. One surprise finding was that another desert native, the cactus wren, was making itself at home in the cityscape.

"The cactus wren is usually associated with the desert, since it builds nests in the protection of cacti and other thorny plants," Warren explains. "However, this native species was able to penetrate the urban ecosystem more successfull the phaniopepla, and has been seen nesting in satellite dishes and other man-made structures."

Since 1973, the cactus wren has been the Arizona State Bird. The Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus are about 8 inches long with brown, black and white feathers giving their backs a speckled appearance. Their white bellies sport brown spots and they have black feathers on their throat. A long stripe of white feathers looks like an eyebrow over dark eyes. They have a long pointed bill and long legs adapted to the thorny plants and cacti that are the natural homes. Cactus wrens may build many nests but will only live in one.

Phainopepla is a medium-sized song bird approximate 7 to 8 inches in size. The male is black in color while the female is grey. Both have long tails and tall, wispy crests. Their name means 'shining robe' , a reference to the male's shiny black coloration. When pursued by predators, they mimic other bird species and actively defend their nesting and foraging territories in the desert. In wooded areas they live in colonies of nesting pairs. Phainopepla eat mistletoe and rarely drink water.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Program and the IGERT Program for Urban Ecology at ASU. Bird census data was collected as part of the long-term ecological monitoring done by the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project. Several local bird watchers and birding groups have assisted in the bird census over the years.

There are several active birding groups in the Valley. They include: the Maricopa Audubon Society, serving Phoenix and the Sonoran Audubon Society serving Glendale. Visitors and residents can also find organized bird watching activities at the Riparian Institute, the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area and Desert Botanical Gardens.