What do museum specimens tell us about the impact of urbanisation? A comparison of the recent and historical bird communities of Sydney

Most research investigating the effect of urbanisation on animals infers temporal change by comparing the species composition of present urban habitats with that of nearby 'natural' sites. In regions with a long history of human habitation and large human populations, there are sometimes sizeable museum collections that provide direct evidence of the distribution of animals present before urbanisation. This study identifies changes in the bird community of Sydney associated with urbanisation, by comparing the pre-1900 bird community determined from the ornithological databases of the Australian Museum and Museum Victoria, with the bird community of 1998-99 determined from Birds Australia's Atlas database. The major difference in the bird community between the two periods was a shift in body size, with large species comprising a greater proportion of the recent bird community than small birds. The source of this difference was a result of both a relative decline in the small species within bird groupings (e.g. small insectivores) and to a relative increase in groupings dominated by larger species (e.g. parrots and vertebrate feeders). These results are similar to those obtained from comparison of urban areas and nearby natural sites.