Avian communities in forest fragments and reforestation areas associated with banana plantations in Costa Rica

Matlock, Robert B.; Rogers, Dennis W.; Edwards, Peter J.; Martin, Stephen G.

doi:10.1016/s0167-8809(01)00232-8

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Despite some evidence of frugivore depletion in agricultural landscapes [10,17,20,68], most literature presents the frugivore and omnivore guilds as less impacted by land-use change and often even more common in agricultural areas [8][9]. In our sampled landscape this trend held true for omnivores, for which no significant difference in species richness among forest and agriculture count stations was found, but not for frugivores, for which a pronounced decrease in the number of species was observed in the agricultural matrix.…”

Section: Bird Guilds Species' Habitat Preferences and Threat Statuscontrasting

confidence: 65%

Bird Assemblages in a Malagasy Forest-Agricultural Frontier: Effects of Habitat Structure and Forest Cover

Rocha

Virtanen

Cabeza

2015

Tropical Conservation Science

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Increasing global human population and per-capita food consumption are expected to exacerbate the already massive agricultural footprint in tropical ecosystems. Madagascar is home to exceptional levels of biodiversity and is in the midst of severe land-use change, mostly driven by slash-and-burn, smallholder agriculture. Understanding the consequences of these agricultural practices for Malagasy native species is therefore of the foremost importance for the conservation of the nation's biodiversity. We surveyed bird assemblages inside and surrounding Ranomafana National Park, southeastern Madagascar, obtaining nearly 1,000 records of more than 60 species. At each study point, habitat structure was characterized by its vegetation complexity, and forest cover was quantified within circles of radii of 100, 500 and 750 m. We found that species richness was higher in forest than in agricultural areas, and responses to land-use change were found to be guildspecific, with frugivores being especially depleted outside forest areas, whereas granivores had higher species richness in the agricultural matrix. The number of recorded species with forest affinities was highly associated with landscape-scale forest cover, while open area and generalist species responded mainly to site-scale habitat structure. Our results demonstrate a turnover from forest-associated species to open area and habitat generalist species in Madagascar's smallholder agricultural areas. Our study underscores the conservation value of landscape-scale forest cover and of site-scale vegetation complexity. A double-stranded conservation approach, in which both landscape-scale forest cover and vegetation complexity are preserved would benefit conservation of the island's forest avifauna.

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Section: Bird Guilds Species' Habitat Preferences and Threat Statuscontrasting

confidence: 65%

Bird Assemblages in a Malagasy Forest-Agricultural Frontier: Effects of Habitat Structure and Forest Cover

Rocha

Virtanen

Cabeza

2015

Tropical Conservation Science

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“…The tree species censused at the study sites largely comprised subsets of the La Selva flora, 80-97% of the individuals recorded being from species present at La Selva. The study avifauna was a subset of La Selva's as well, only four bird species detected being absent from the station list: Charadriiformes, Calidris minutilla, Calidris pusilla, Limnodromus griseus; Columbiformes, Columbina passerina (Matlock et al 2002). Thus, La Selva's avifauna is probably similar to that which occupied the study sites before deforestation and fragmentation, and the assumption was made that the study species list constitutes a remnant subset of the species recorded from the station.…”

Section: Effect Of Nest Type and Indicator Status On Species Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a previous study (Matlock et al 2002), we documented the species composition of bird communities in 10 tracts of forested habitat adjacent to banana (Musa acuminata Colla) plantations in the Costa Rican Caribbean lowlands, a region formerly dominated by tropical moist-to-wet forest (Holdridge 1967). These habitats, comprising reforestation plantings, riparian forest strips, terrestrial forest remnants and swamp forest supported distinct avifaunas totaling over 200 bird species, roughly half those recorded from pristine lowland forest in the same region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this study, we evaluate environmental and avian trait data as statistical predictors of the species richness, abundance and intersite dissimilarity (i.e. b diversity) of birds censused in 10 forest fragments and reforestation areas (Matlock et al 2002). The statistical methods we use are general and applicable to any study relating avian diversity to habitat.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If nest predation is an important cause of species loss in tropical forest remnants, birds making exposed open nests should be more vulnerable to nest predation, more prone to extinction and, as a consequence, depauperate in fragmented habitats relative to intact forest. The vast majority of bird species reported by Matlock et al (2002) were a subset of the avifauna known from the La Selva Biological Station, a pristine forest site in the same region, and comprised roughly half the species recorded from that site. Logistic regression was used to analyze whether the presence or absence of La Selva species in the Matlock et al (2002) species list was related to nest type and indicator category status (Stotz et al 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Influence of Habitat Variables on Bird Communities in Forest Remnants in Costa Rica

Matlock

Edwards

2006

Biodivers Conserv

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This study examined the effects of forest structure (tree species richness, canopy height, percent canopy cover, understory density, tree density and DBH) and avian species traits (nest type and indicator list status) on the diversity, abundance and dissimilarity of bird communities in forest remnants and reforestation areas adjacent to Costa Rican banana plantations. Bird species richness and abundance were significantly related to tree species richness, canopy height and canopy cover in multiple linear regressions, the latter two forest structure variables being the best statistical predictors. Stratification of analyses by bird species indicator categories improved fits of regressions, because correlations with environmental variables differed in sign for different guilds of birds, a result likely to hold for other avifaunas. Analysis of avifauna dissimilarities among sites demonstrated that the species composition of bird communities was highly correlated with forest structure and tree species composition. Logistic regressions indicated that birds making protected (cavity, burrow, pendant, sphere and covered) nests were 2-6 times more likely to be present in the study avifauna than birds making open (cup, saucer, platform and scrape) nests and indicators of disturbed habitats were 11 times more likely to be present than indicators of primary forest. The forest structure data used were simple and inexpensive to collect, and data on avian traits were drawn from the literature. Thus, these methods could easily be replicated at other locations and would be valuable management aids and biodiversity assessment tools for conservation planning.

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References

2011

Conservation of Tropical Birds

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Avian communities in forest fragments and reforestation areas associated with banana plantations in Costa Rica

Cited by 28 publications

References 21 publications

Bird Assemblages in a Malagasy Forest-Agricultural Frontier: Effects of Habitat Structure and Forest Cover

Bird Assemblages in a Malagasy Forest-Agricultural Frontier: Effects of Habitat Structure and Forest Cover

The Influence of Habitat Variables on Bird Communities in Forest Remnants in Costa Rica

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