Sentinel plasticine prey has been increasingly used to estimate predation pressure. The use of plasticine prey may, however, bias the results, as this method was originally designed to account for predation by organisms that can visually recognize the shapes and colors of their prey. To evaluate the limitations of using sentinel plasticine prey, we compared predator attack rates between real prey – dead and live mealworms, Tenebrio molitor L. (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) – and plasticine models in a monsoonal tropical rainforest of southeastern China. The attack rates by invertebrates were highest on dead prey followed by live prey and plasticine models, whereas the attack rates by vertebrates were lowest on dead prey, and did not differ between live prey and plasticine models. These results confirm that bias imposed by using the plasticine models is affected by the type of predators. In addition, we tested the validity and generality of the premise that predators can distinguish the shapes of plasticine model prey and preferentially attack a caterpillar‐like shape over other shapes. To test this hypothesis, we conducted three independent experiments in China, Papua New Guinea, and Finland. In the two latter localities, predation rates on plasticine caterpillars were higher than on models of other shapes, whereas in China, these differences were not significant. Taken together, our study suggests that plasticine models may underestimate the predation by invertebrates to a greater extent than predation by vertebrates, and the preference of model shape by predators may be locality‐specific, presumably due to differences in the composition of the predator community. We propose that predation be estimated on both live and plasticine prey in future studies to measure the potential bias imposed by using plasticine models and its variation among various habitats and predator groups.

Birds are one of the biological wealth owned by Indonesia. The structure of the lower strata of bird communities in tropical areas represent a very good system to see the difference in sensitivity between species for habitat variation in different scales. This study was conducted in January 2013 using the method of net Mist (mist nets) in the Kerinci National Park (TNKS). Birds that are found as many as 21 species to 83 people only order passerines with six families. The diversity of birds affected by many factors diantarannya abundance of epiphytes, an abundance of fruits, the openness of the forest floor and tree species composition. Generally mountainous forest area will have a relatively high number of species ang.

Abstract. Solina ID, Mukhtar E, Novarion W, Dahelmi. 2023. Small carnivore diversity in forest patches around oil palm plantation in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 24: 1824-1832. The accelerating rates of forest conversion into agricultural land are the main driver for biodiversity loss. How biodiversity, particularly secondary consumers, can adapt to different agricultural schemes is critical to conservation planning. Currently, small forests within oil palm plantations should receive more attention, especially as they are habitats for small carnivores, and it is still unknown how they respond to habitat change. We analyzed camera trap data from 2015 to 2018 in key High Conservation Value (HCV) forests in South Solok, West Sumatra: Kencana Sawit Indonesia company (forest patch A) and Tidar Kerinci Agung company (forest patches B and C). LecoS is used to collect landscape metrics data then evaluated using the Generalized Linear Models (GLM) to assess the impact of fragmentation on the presence of small carnivores in forest patches. The model with the lowest Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) value was the one we regarded to be the most acceptable. We found 12 species of small carnivores belonging to 4 families; six species were identified in patch A, ten in patch B, and only three in patch C. We identified that land covers are the most important parameter on the presence of small carnivores in oil palm plantations in West Sumatra based on GLM results. Due to the importance of forested regions to small carnivore diversity, we recommend increasing forest connectivity into and across oil palm landscapes.