Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2008 number 1

A city is like an island among the natural landscape. Therefore the principles of island ecology are suitable for a city. This approach may be used also to consider a city within its boundaries: the number of green open spaces, aquatories, their area, degree of fragmentation and distance from the perimeter of the urban zone. Natural analogues of urban bird communities in relation to diversity and domination may be the communities at an early stage of succession, under extremal conditions or often exposed to disturbances. Obviously adaptation of birds to urban habitats occurs as a result of pre-adaptation and various modifications. In some cases urban bird populations survive changes of reproductive biology and behavior. However, the observed changes are not universal for different species.