Unburnt patches maintain bird abundance and species richness following large wildfires in an Australian semiarid woodland ecosystem

2022 ◽  
Vol 199 ◽  
pp. 104713
Author(s):  
Zoe KM. Reynolds ◽  
Rebecca L. Boulton ◽  
Marcel Cardillo
The Condor ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle D Kittelberger ◽  
Montague H C Neate-Clegg ◽  
Evan R Buechley ◽  
Çağan Hakkı Şekercioğlu

Abstract Tropical mountains are global hotspots for birdlife. However, there is a dearth of baseline avifaunal data along elevational gradients, particularly in Africa, limiting our ability to observe and assess changes over time in tropical montane avian communities. In this study, we undertook a multi-year assessment of understory birds along a 1,750 m elevational gradient (1,430–3,186 m) in an Afrotropical moist evergreen montane forest within Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains. Analyzing 6 years of systematic bird-banding data from 5 sites, we describe the patterns of species richness, abundance, community composition, and demographic rates over space and time. We found bimodal patterns in observed and estimated species richness across the elevational gradient (peaking at 1,430 and 2,388 m), although no sites reached asymptotic species richness throughout the study. Species turnover was high across the gradient, though forested sites at mid-elevations resembled each other in species composition. We found significant variation across sites in bird abundance in some of the dietary and habitat guilds. However, we did not find any significant trends in species richness or guild abundances over time. For the majority of analyzed species, capture rates did not change over time and there were no changes in species’ mean elevations. Population growth rates, recruitment rates, and apparent survival rates averaged 1.02, 0.52, and 0.51 respectively, and there were no elevational patterns in demographic rates. This study establishes a multi-year baseline for Afrotropical birds along an elevational gradient in an under-studied international biodiversity hotspot. These data will be critical in assessing the long-term responses of tropical montane birdlife to climate change and habitat degradation.


1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Baker ◽  
Ross L. Goldingay ◽  
Robert J. Whelan

Powerline easements are typically a strip cleared of trees and tall vegetation to a width of approximately 50 m. They may affect avifauna by modification and fragmentation of forest habitat. We investigated the responses of the bird community to easements at three sites in southeastern Australia using 25 m radius point-counts spaced at 50 m intervals from the easement to 300 m inside the forest. The easements caused an absolute loss of habitat for forest avifauna, with abundance and species richness at the easement less than 20% of the forest values. Four species of easement opportunist and one easement specialist provided evidence that the easement represented a new type of habitat for avifauna. A barrier effect of fragmentation may occur for four species of easement avoiders. These were small to medium-sized terrestrial birds associated with dense ground and/or understorey cover. The edge effect of fragmentation was an adverse impact on forest avifauna. At the margin (25?125 m from the easement) of the forest, bird abundance, mean species richness and total species richness were significantly less than the corresponding values for the interior (225?325 m) of the forest. The mean abundance at the sites varied from 13.0?17.7 birds/ha and the species richness varied significantly among sites. The adverse impacts of powerline easements on native avifauna could be minimized by site-specific management which includes strategies to minimize the loss of forest habitat and to ameliorate the effects of fragmentation.


2005 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Cintra ◽  
T. M. Sanaiotti

The effects of fire on the composition of a bird community were investigated in an Amazonian savanna near Alter-do-Chão, Pará (Brazil). Mist-net captures and visual counts were used to assess species richness and bird abundance pre- and post-fire in an approximately 20 ha area. Visual counts along transects were used to survey birds in an approximately 2000 ha area in a nearby area. Results using the same method of ordination analysis (multidimensional scaling) showed significant effects of fire in the 20 ha and 2000 ha areas and strongly suggest direct effects on bird community composition. However, the effects were different at different spatial scales and/or in different years, indicating that the effects of fire vary spatially and/or temporally. Bird community composition pre-fire was significantly different from that found post-fire. Using multiple regression analysis it was found that the numbers of burned and unburned trees were not significantly related to either bird species richness or bird abundance. Two months after the fire, neither bird species richness nor bird abundance was significantly related to the number of flowering trees (Lafoensia pacari) or fruiting trees (Byrsonima crassifolia). Since fire is an annual event in Alter-do-Chão and is becoming frequent in the entire Amazon, bird community composition in affected areas could be constantly changing in time and space.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
pp. 9748-9758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea L. Wood ◽  
Margaret Summerside ◽  
Pieter T. J. Johnson

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prakhar Rawal ◽  
Swati Kittur ◽  
Murali Krishna Chatakonda ◽  
K S Gopi Sundar

Abstract Urbanisation can limit species persistence and bias composition of functional guilds with serious consequences for ecosystem functioning and conservation planning. Standardised biodiversity surveys are missing at most tropical urban cities where biodiversity levels are high alongside rapidly increasing rates of urbanisation. We explored the utility of time-bound surveys to document winter birds at ponds (wetlands ≤ 5 ha) in Delhi, India at two different times of the day (morning and evening) and in areas with varying extents of wetlands. Systematic surveys at 39 ponds during January–March 2020 yielded an estimated 173 ± 22 bird species (∼37% of Delhi’s birds). The total bird species assemblage at ponds did not vary significantly with time of day, but β-diversity increased marginally with increasing extent of wetlands. Total bird abundance and species richness varied substantially with time of day, with differences apparent across several species rich functional feeding and habitat guilds. Abundance and species richness of some guilds, including species-poor guilds, varied in ponds located in areas with differing extent of wetlands. Reliable and comparable measures of species abundance and species richness (both total and across functional guilds)— metrics commonly used to set research and conservation priorities—in urban habitats can be obtained after appropriately standardising field effort. Such standardised efforts can help underscore the importance of maintaining and improving erstwhile-ignored habitats such as unprotected ponds that are providing refugia to hundreds of bird species in mega-cities like Delhi.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Hanle ◽  
Balangoda M. P. Singhakumara ◽  
Mark S. Ashton

The Sinharaja rainforest in southwestern Sri Lanka is a protected forest in a largely agriculture-dominated landscape. In keeping with global UNESCO global biosphere reserves planning, the Sinharaja is surrounded by a buffer zone of regenerating forest and villages with small tea plots and multi-strata tree gardens (homegardens). Globally, however, conservation planning lacks standards on buffer zone management. We ask what relationships exist between village land use and bird assemblages, which are effective ecosystem indicators. Birds have been little studied across land use and vegetation structure in actively managed, large, protected forest buffer zones. To that end, we ran spatially- and temporally-replicated bird point counts across tree gardens, forest fragments, and tea plots within a Sinharaja village. Tree gardens held a greater abundance of birds across habitat association, conservation concern, diet, and endemic species than forest fragments or tea plots. Forest fragments and tree gardens hosted statistically similar numbers of birds in some subsets, but their species assemblages differed. In tea plots, greater shade tree species richness correlated with greater bird abundance and species richness. Our results support the argument for programs to support complex small-scale tree-based agroforestry embedded in buffer zone regenerating forest.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 605-612
Author(s):  
Alexander Kurniawan Sariyanto Putera ◽  
Yeni Aryati Mulyani ◽  
Dyah Perwitasari Farajallah ◽  
Stanislav Lhota ◽  
Tadeas Toulec

The Kariangau Industrial Zone extends industry from Balikpapan city in the Central Balikpapan to the coast in Western Balikpapan, forming a part of Balikpapan Bay. Our study aimed to estimate the diversity, species composition, and the abundance distribution of birds at the industrial zone of Balikpapan City. Our study contained six replicates each of boat transects on four rivers, the Somber, Getah, Paka Dua, and Wain rivers during the months of May and June 2017. We calculated the Margalef diversity and Bray–Curtis similarity indices to estimate diversity and species composition, whereas bird abundance distributions were analyzed using Paleontological Statistics (PAST) version 3.12. The Getah river had the highest diversity index (4.846), followed by the Somber (3.988), Wain (3.510), and Paka Dua (3.050) rivers. The Bray–Curtis index revealed high similarity in species composition between the Wain and Paka Dua. Our rarefaction analysis showed that the Wain and Paka Dua rivers were well sampled and had lower species richness, with low differences between the observed and expected species richness, than the Somber and Getah rivers. Fisher Log Series Model also showed abundance distribution being highest at Getah (11.170), and lowest at the Paka Dua Rivers (5.221). This observation may be due to heightened industrial activities and boat traffic on each river. Our study provides a useful baseline for future research on the bird assemblages on Balikpapan Bay.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard N. Belcher ◽  
Keren R. Sadanandan ◽  
Emmanuel R. Goh ◽  
Jie Yi Chan ◽  
Sacha Menz ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1890) ◽  
pp. 20181842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen S. Nell ◽  
Luis Abdala-Roberts ◽  
Victor Parra-Tabla ◽  
Kailen A. Mooney

Biodiversity affects the structure of ecological communities, but little is known about the interactive effects of diversity across multiple trophic levels. We used a large-scale forest diversity experiment to investigate the effects of tropical tree species richness on insectivorous birds, and the subsequent indirect effect on predation rates by birds. Diverse plots (four tree species) had higher bird abundance (61%), phylogenetic diversity (61%), and functional diversity (55%) than predicted based on single-species monocultures, which corresponded to higher attack rates on artificial caterpillars (65%). Tree diversity effects on attack rate were driven by complementarity among tree species, with increases in attack rate observed on all tree species in polycultures. Attack rates on artificial caterpillars were higher in plots with higher bird abundance and diversity, but the indirect effect of tree species richness was mediated by bird diversity, providing evidence that diversity can interact across trophic levels with consequences tied to ecosystem services and function.


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