Patterns of local bird diversity in the city of Brasilia

The Brazilian capital Brasília was inaugurated in 1960 in the center of the Cerrado region, in a predominantly rural area without major urban centers. Since then it has grown to over two million inhabitants in the city and surroundings. The city has fragments of cerrado savanna and associated habitats in city parks, as well as major reserves around the city adding up to nearly 100,000 hectares. The purpose of this study was to assess species composition and heterogeneity in two cerrado fragments on the University of Brasília campus.We established two transects at different sites with a length of 1.1 km (CRAD site) and 1.7 km (CO site). We sampled each for the same time duration, between 6:15 and 8:00 AM or from 4:15 to 6:00 PM, eight times each from 19 August to 25 November 2016. The CRAD site had 49 species, and the CO site 73 species, of which 41 were shared, and communities were significantly different (Mann-Whitney, U=2549, p<0.05). Although species richness per km was similar between sites, the CO site had higher proportion of unique species, due to its being beside a lake and having wetland habitats. Overall nearly 18% of the Federal District avifauna was recorded on the university campus.