| Summary: | The array of definitions regarding ?peri-urban? areas do not allow the precise measurement of its boundaries in a city. In this study, I developed an easy- to-use method to calculate the area where urban and adjacent non-urban systems intermingle. To validate that such areas were ecologically meaningful, I com- pared bird community species-richness, abundance, and composition from ?intra-? and ?peri-urban? areas in a medium-sized neotropical city. Results show that ?peri- urban? areas represent an important ecological interaction area for birds, and differ greatly from ?intra-urban? areas. The proposed method is robust and useful for a great variety of amoeboid-growing cities.
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