Contrasting trajectories of biodiversity loss and urban expansion make it imperative to understand biodiversity persistence in cities. Size‐, local‐, and landscape‐level habitat factors of greenspaces in cities may be critical for future design and management of urban greenspaces in conserving bird biodiversity. Most current understanding of bird communities in cities has come from disparate analyses of single cities, over relatively short time periods, producing limited understanding of processes and characteristics of bird patterns for improved biodiversity management of the world's cities. We analyzed bird biodiversity in 112 urban greenspaces from 51 cities across eight countries, usingeBird, a broadscale citizen science project. Species richness and Shannon diversity were used as response variables, while percent tree cover, percent water cover, and vegetation index were used as habitat predictor variables at both a landscape (5 and 25 km radius) and local‐scale level (specific to an individual greenspace) in the modeling process, retrieved using Google Earth Engine. Area of a greenspace was the most important predictor of bird biodiversity, underlining the critical importance of habitat area as the most important factor for increasing bird biodiversity and mitigating loss from urbanization. Surprisingly, distance from the city center and distance from the coast were not significantly related to bird biodiversity. Landscape‐scale habitat predictors were less related to bird biodiversity than local‐scale habitat predictors. Ultimately, bird biodiversity loss could be mitigated by protecting and developing large greenspaces with varied habitat in the world's cities.

Birds in the bin: It is by now well accepted that humans are not the only animal to have complex culture, and we have also found that ecological novelty can lead to cultural innovation. Klump et al. documented the emergence of an evolving set of behaviors in response to human-generated resources, specifically garbage bins, in sulphur-crested cockatoos. This finding both documents the existence and spread of complex foraging culture among parrots, a lineage known for high-level cognitive function, and illuminates how the spread of a cultural innovation can lead to regional distinct variations. Science , abe7808, this issue p. 456

Callaghan, C. T., M. B. Lyons, J. M. Martin, R. E. Major, and R. T. Kingsford. 2017. Assessing the reliability of avian biodiversity measures of urban greenspaces using eBird citizen science data. Avian Conservation and Ecology 12(2):12. https://doi.org/10.5751/ACE-01104-120212

Avitourism is one of the faster growing subsectors of ecotourism, recognized for its economic value. Much of our current understanding of the economic value of avitourism revolves around bird festivals, migration events, or well-known birdwatching sites. Birdwatchers are a diverse group, some of whom competitively seek vagrant birds (i.e., birds outside their normal geographic range). The economic value from these unpredictable and transient birdwatching events remains poorly known. Using the travel cost method in a readily-quantifiable environment, we estimated that a vagrant Black-backed Oriole in Pennsylvania, United States of America, stimulated travel activity valued at about $223,000 USD or about $3,000 per day over 67 days. Some birdwatchers value rare birds, contributing significant time and financial resources to their viewing. Identifying such significant real economic value from avitourism can help to evaluate competing costs in debate over human land-use scenarios.