PIA

Alumnos:
José Luis Cabré Flores -
2075648
Héctor ángel Martínez González -
1854383
Paola Michelle Castro Lewis - 1975383
Eduardo Iván Castillo Salazar -
1479982

Maestra: Katia Lizeth Treviño Cuellar

Materia: Métodos de Laboratorio y Campo

Fecha: 17/12/2020
 Birds in the Metropolitan Area of Monterrey
Introduction

The metropolitan area of Monterrey is a well-known place on the Northeast part of

Mexico in the state of Nuevo León, known as an Industrial city, as well as one of the
most populated areas in the whole country. Once it was lush and green, but nowadays
most of it has been turned into concrete, highways and buildings, leaving little space to
fauna to be there, where they ultimately had belonged. Birds were chosen for this
project since they can adapt better to urban environments using some parts of buildings
as their nests among some other adaptations, but since they can adapt better and keep up
with an ever-changing environment there is a wonder on how many native species there
are and if there are any who were introduced or are considered as invasive species and
perhaps it is important to know the diversity of birds the area has to appreciate them,
know what functions they have along an ecosystem, what role they play, to know where
it can be found (local, regional o even at a national level) as well as to have a register of
all those that belong in the area and those that were introduced and does not belong
there.

Hypothesis

Industrial activities that pollute the sky have affected severely the bird species that used
to fly around the metropolitan area in Monterrey, almost leading some non-urban-
adapted species to their disappearance.

Objectives

 Get a study of species that reside in the metropolitan area of Monterrey

 Find out if any exotic species have been sighted in urban areas and give possible
causes for the event.
 Find out which are the most common species of birds in all the counties.

Sampling Area
The Metropolitan area of Monterrey, conforming the following thirteen counties:
Apodaca, Cadereyta Jiménez, El Carmen, García, San Pedro Garza García, General
Escobedo, Guadalupe, Juárez, Monterrey, Salinas Victoria, San Nicolás de los Garza,
Santa Catarina y Santiago were the areas where the samples (pictures) were taken.

Sample type

Pictures and random samplings.

Methodology

To collect all the information needed to elaborate this project and know what species
there are in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, the usage of open sources of
information was needed. Only one source was used: “https://www.naturalista.mx” to get
the occurrences, pictures, and data of the different bird species among the thirteen
counties of the Metropolitan area of Monterrey.

The carry out the research part of this project the participants had to find the
occurrences of the species of bird that live in each of the counties of the Metropolitan
Area of Monterrey on the Naturalist site, looking up each of the counties to know what
species can be found on each one, but in a generalist way, mostly to find out the most
common species as well as the invasive/exotic or introduced species by filtering put the
information per county but most importantly how many species in total can be found
through each of the counties based on
the observations taken out of the
Naturalist site.
 Figure 2- Information filters applied

Based on the type of sampling technique, the Metropolitan area was divided in thirteen
counties where some species could be found in some counties and some other would not
even appear on the same, perhaps most of each members of the populations of the bird
species were likely to be included within each area a species, they must have equal
chance of being chosen trough the counties, thus the sample which are the photographs
of the species had a greater chance of being unbiased.

Once the goals were accomplished and results were gathered, the most important ones
were be displayed in charts and some others as paragraphs of information as well as
photographs.

Results

Exotic/Introduced or Invasive species of birds in the counties of the Metropolitan area

of Monterrey were the following: Passer domesticus, Streptopelia decaocto, Columba
livia, Anas platyrhynchos, Myiopsitta monachus, Sturnus vulgaris, Gallus gallus,
Numida meleagris, Anser anser, Nymphicus hollandicus, Anser cygnoides and
Agapornis fischeri, as displayed on the table below.

Species San Pedro Garza Garcia San Nicolas de los Garza Santa Catarina Santiago

Passer domesticus Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences

Streptopelia decaocto Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences
Columba livia Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences
Anas platyrhynchos Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences
Myiopsitta monachus Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences -----------
Sturnus vulgaris ----------- Occurrences ----------- -----------
Gallus gallus ----------- ----------- Occurrences Occurrences
Numida meleagris ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Anser anser ----------- Occurrences ----------- -----------
Nymphicus ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
hollandicus
Anser cygnoides ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Agapornis fischeri ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------

Species Apodaca Cadereyta El Carmen Garcia General Guadalupe Juarez Monterrey Salinas
Jimenez Escobedo Victoria
Passer Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrence Occurrences
domesticus s
Streptopelia Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrence Occurrences
decaocto s
Columba livia Occurrences -------- Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Occurrence Occurrences
s
Anas Occurrences ---------- Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences ------- Occurrence Occurrences
platyrhynchos s
Myiopsitta Occurrences ---------- ---------- Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences ---------------- Occurrence -----------
monachus -- s
Sturnus vulgaris Occurrences --------- ----------- ----------- Occurrences Occurrences ------- Occurrence
s
Gallus gallus Occurrences Occurrences --------- Occurrences ---------- Occurrences Occurrences Occurrence Occurrences
s
Numida --------- ----------- Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences -------- ----- -----------
meleagris
Anser anser -------------- --------- ----------- Occurrences ------- Occurrences ------ Occurrence ----------
s
Nymphicus ------------- ----------- -------- Occurrences ----------- Occurrences ------- --------- -------------
hollandicus
Anser cygnoides ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Occurrences ----------- ----------- -----------
Agapornis ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- Occurrences ----------- ----------- -----------
fischeri
 Agapornis fischeri, Anser cygnoides and Myipsitta monachus (From left
to right), are some introduced species that have been seen in a low occurrence in Metropolitan area. (Pictures from
https://www.naturalista.mx).

Also, an important result showed up, it was that in the whole state of Nuevo Leon there
are only 326 different bird species, where as a matter of fact 252 of them can be found
in the county of Santiago that is among the 13 counties of the Metropolitan area of
Monterrey but in the other twelve some species out of the 326 in total can be found in
there.

The identification of the most biodiverse County in the Metropolitan area of Monterrey
was possible, and according to the occurrences of species on the open-source data was
Santiago with 252 different species according to the Naturalist site
https://www.naturalista.mx. On the other hand, the county with less biodiversity in the
Metropolitan area of Monterrey due to the according occurrences of species is El
Carmen with only 29 different species, according to the site.

In addition, during the research some information was found on a page from the source
we were using. This information is extremely useful to answer the research question and
goals of the project: which are the most common birds not onfly of the Metropolitan
Area but as well as in the whole state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico and those are: Pitangus
sulphuratus, Columbiana inca, Passer domesticus, Zenaida asiatica, Quiscalus
Mexicanus, Cathartes aura, Columba livia and last but certainly not the least the
Melanerpes fromicivorus.

Quiscalus mexicanus, Columba inca and Columba livia, are some of the most known species in metropolitan area.
(Pictures from https://www.naturalista.mx).

Also, looking for species results, some information about behaviour came uo, it I not
need for any of the objectives nor research question but it is interesting to know, results
in which polarized information were found while researching open-source databases.
There were many things that highlighted at sight, such as the Mexican parrot found out
overflying the urban constructions on Monterrey, but they were not kept captive and its
occurrence can be explained easily by looking at the date they were sighted, which
coincided with their migration period, so they could not be counted as an exotic
occurrence out of the natural flow in the ecosystem
Then, in the search of a bigger perspective, the occurrences were placed by its
frequency, but the results were not as expected, none of the sighted organisms happened
to be of endangered or non-common species, and, in the case of the parrots and the
Green Chara, both were sighted in a flock, migrating to their place of mate.

Figure 2- Species caught behaving on an interesting way.

Conclusions

Once analyzed all the distinct bird species occurances that surrounded the metropolitan area of
Monterrey some conclusions came out to the light, being the most important of them that
Monterrey’s metropolitan area wasn’t as biodiversity-lacking as firstly thought, at least in the
bird species matter, showing not only a complex ecosystem of different species getting along,
but the prove that despite the pollution in the sky, responsible of haunting the air we breathe,
birds found out a way to survive and overcome the unnatural hurdle we provided them.

Maybe the introduction of new species observed in Metropolitan area is related to the expantion
of the urban life and domestication of the species found.

References

 https://www.naturalista.mx

 Pictures, in the order they appeared in this work

 Agapornis fischeri https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/30713998
 Anser cygnoides https://www.flickr.com/photos/stirwise/2432009507/ in

https://www.naturalista.mx/photos/56711144
 Myiopsitta monachus https://www.flickr.com/photos/juan_e/23775321615/ in
https://www.naturalista.mx/photos/101224790
 Quiscalus mexicanus https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/21134/large.jpg?
1545367548
 Columba inca https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/1442236/large.jpg?
1419534881
 Columba livia https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/12006987/large.jpg?
1545917778
 Common Birds in the State of Nuevo Leon. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16
December 2020, from: https://www.naturalista.mx/guides/7814
 Observations | Apodaca. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December 2020, from
https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37304&view=species
 Comments : Cadereyta Jimenez. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December
2020, from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=129483&view=species
 Observations | El Carmen. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December 2020,
from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=101471&view=species
 Common Birds in the State of Nuevo Leon. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved
December 16, 2020, from https://www.naturalista.mx/guides/7814
 Comments | Garcia. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December 2020, from
https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37316&view=species
 Comments | General Escobedo. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December
2020, from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=101476&view=species
 Observations | Guadalupe. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December 2020,
from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37323&view=species
 Comments | Juarez. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December 2020, from
https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37327&view=species
 Observations : Monterrey. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved December 16, 2020,
from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37338&view=species
 Observations : Salinas Victoria. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December
2020, from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37343&view=species
 Observations | San Nicolas de los Garza. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16
December 2020, from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37344&view=species
 Observations | San Pedro Garza Garcia. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16
December 2020, from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37345&view=species
 Observations : Santa Catarina. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December
2020, from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37346&view=species
 Observations | Santiago. (n. d.). NaturaLista. Retrieved 16 December 2020, from
https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
iconic_taxa=Aves&place_id=37347&view=species
 Observations | Species in State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico (n. d.). NaturaLista.
Retrieved 16 December 2020, from https://www.naturalista.mx/observations?
project_id=900&place_id=any&verifiable=any&captive=any&view=species