Fine-scale characterization of bird habitat using airborne LiDAR in an urban park in Japan

Birds are ecosystem service providers and excellent urban ecosystem indicators because they are sensitive to habitat structure. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology is a promising tool in bird habitat characterization because it can directly acquire fine-scale 3-D information over large areas; however, most of past avian ecological studies using LiDAR were conducted in North America and Europe, and there have been no studies in Asia. The robustness of LiDAR data across different habitat types remain problematic. In this study, we set 13 plots having different canopy area percentages in a large-scale urban park in Japan, and examined the usefulness of airborne LiDAR data in modeling richness and diversity of forest bird species and the abundance of Paridae species that play an important role in the urban food web. Bird surveys were conducted eight times at each plot during the birds’ breeding season, and the results were estimated using generalized linear models. In consequence, all of the response variables were explained by one or a few LiDAR variables, and the 1 × 1 × 1-m voxel-based variables were especially robust estimators. When targeting only densely-forested plots having more than 60% canopy area, the LiDAR data efficiency declined in estimation of the richness and diversity of whole forest bird species, whereas a laser penetration rate was efficient for estimating the Paridae species abundance. These results implied that the LiDAR data are useful in habitat characterization of forest birds, and even when targeting only dense forests, some LiDAR variables are effective for habitat estimation of birds preferring specific forest structures. In the future, application of LiDAR across a variety of ecosystems will greatly serve to develop adaptive conservation and management planning for urban forests.