In this new paper, researchers examined breeding bird assemblages from 58 cities across the globe to compare their phylogenetic and functional diversity to their regional bird assemblages. The goal was to determine the efficacy of a new method of sampling to circumvent the “space-for-time” substitution used in urban studies.

La Sorte, F.A., C.A. Lepczyk, M.F.J. Aronson, M.A. Goddard, M. Hedblom, M. Katti, I. MacGregor-Fors, U. Mörtberg, C.H. Nilon, P.S. Warren, N.S.G Williams, and J. Yang. (2018). The phylogenetic and functional diversity of regional breeding bird assemblages is reduced and constricted through urbanization. Diversity and Distributions Epub ahead of print. DOI: 10.1111/ddi.12738