1. Fauna monitoring in urban forests of
Slovenia: birds and insects
Maarten de Groot, Katarina Flajšman &
Tomaž Mihelič
17.6.2014, Final conference
Urban forests: Lungs of the city

2. Urban forests vs other forests
Habitat fragmentation
Habitat quality
Disturbance

3. Aims
• Monitoring hoverflies in urban forests as a
indicator for biodiversity
– Investigate which methods are the best for
monitoring hoverflies
• Setting up a network for monitoring birds in
Ljubljana
• Investigating factors influencing the bird
species assemblage

4. Hoverflies

5. Methods
• Transect
– 1x per month
– April - October
– 3 transects
– Only sunny days
• Malaise trap
– Every 2 weeks
– April - October

6. Trends Rožnik
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
numberofhoverflies
transect
2012
2013
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
1/4 21/5 10/7 29/8 18/10
numberofhoverflies
malaise trap
2012
2013

7. Trends Rožnik
0
5
10
15
20
25
transect malaise trap
Numberofspecies
increase
decrease
stable
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
transect malaise trap
numberofspecies
microphagous species
increase
decrease
stable
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
transect malaise trap
numberofspecies
phytophagous species
increase
decrease
stable
0
5
10
15
transect malaise trap
numberofspecies
predatory species
increase
decrease
stable
0
0,5
1
1,5
2
2,5
3
3,5
transect malaise trap
numberofspecies
saproxylic species
increase
decrease
stable

8. Malaise trap vs transect

9. Trends Gameljne
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
April Maj Junij Julij Avgust September
numberofhoverflies
Gameljne 1
Gameljne 2

10. Birds

11. Methods
• Methods
25m
50m
- 39 point counts
- Three belts

12. Results
• 50 species
• 1246 individuals
number of species
cuckoos
herons
pigeons
song bird
woodpeckers
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0 10 20 30 40 50
numberofspecies
sample number

13. Number of birds
periurban urban
05101520
numberofbirdspecies
forest park
05101520
numberofbirdspecies
0e+00 2e+06 4e+06 6e+06
05101520
surface of the forest patch (m3)
numberofbirdspecies
Not significant!

14. Urban vs peri-urban areas
-1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5
-0.6-0.20.20.6
NMDS1
NMDS2
Black line = urban area
Dashed line = peri-urban area

15. Forest vs parks
Black line = forest
Dashed line = park
-1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5
-0.6-0.20.20.6
NMDS1
NMDS2

16. Forest patch size
-1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5
-0.6-0.20.20.6
NMDS1
NMDS2
surface

17. Conclusions
• Hoverflies:
– Trends can be found within hoverflies
– Trends can compared between different groups
– Different methods should be used together
• Birds:
– Establishment of a monitoring network
– Different species in urban and peri-urban forests
– Forest surface affect species assemblage
– In order to setup a monitoring network the above
mentioned factors should be taken into account

18. Acknowledgments
• Cofinancers of EMonFUr
– Slovenian Ministery of Agriculture and
Environment
– Municipality of Ljubljana
– LIFE+
• Project partners
• photographers