Mass–abundance scaling in avian communities is maintained after tropical selective logging

Abstract

Selective logging dominates forested landscapes across the tropics. Despite the structural damage incurred, selectively logged forests typically retain more biodiversity than other forest disturbances. Most logging impact studies consider conventional metrics, like species richness, but these can conceal subtle biodiversity impacts. The mass–abundance relationship is an integral feature of ecological communities, describing the negative relationship between body mass and population abundance, where, in a system without anthropogenic influence, larger species are less abundant due to higher energy requirements. Changes in this relationship can indicate community structure and function changes. We investigated the impacts of selective logging on the mass–abundance scaling of avian communities by conducting a meta‐analysis to examine its pantropical trend. We divide our analysis between studies using mist netting, sampling the understory avian community, and point counts, sampling the entire community. Across 19 mist‐netting studies, we found no consistent effects of selective logging on mass–abundance scaling relative to primary forests, except for the omnivore guild where there were fewer larger‐bodied species after logging. In eleven point‐count studies, we found a more negative relationship in the whole community after logging, likely driven by the frugivore guild, showing a similar pattern. Limited effects of logging on mass–abundance scaling may suggest high species turnover in logged communities, with like‐for‐like replacement of lost species with similar‐sized species. The increased negative mass–abundance relationship found in some logged communities could result from resource depletion, density compensation, or increased hunting; potentially indicating downstream impacts on ecosystem functions. Synthesis and applications. Our results suggest that size distributions of avian communities in logged forests are relatively robust to disturbance, potentially maintaining ecosystem processes in these forests, thus underscoring the high conservation value of logged tropical forests, indicating an urgent need to focus on their protection from further degradation and deforestation.

ETIB‐T: An Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography for plant traits

“…83%, which also partly confirms the hypothesis that new colonists are ‘like‐for‐like’ substitutes in terms of traits of the extinct species (scenario 3, Figure 1d; see also, e.g. Cosset et al, 2020). However, new colonists also occupied novel trait space beyond that of the established community.…”

Rapid Anthropocene realignment of allometric scaling rules

“…This contrasts with the local SDR that focuses on a single community (e.g. Cosset et al, 2020; Russo et al, 2003). Therefore, our results do not necessarily challenge local SDR (Cosset et al, 2020), but global SDR, indicating that conclusions are sensitive to the time of investigation.…”

“…Cosset et al, 2020; Russo et al, 2003). Therefore, our results do not necessarily challenge local SDR (Cosset et al, 2020), but global SDR, indicating that conclusions are sensitive to the time of investigation. Changes in the global SDR are more difficult to interpret (White et al, 2007) because do not imply changes and compensation at the community level, but rather an overall change that can emerge from the independent changes of many communities.…”

Avian species functional diversity and habitat use: The role of forest structural attributes and tree diversity in the Midlands Mistbelt Forests of KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa

“…Depending on their specialisation, bird species provide ecosystem services such as seed dispersal (Egerer et al, 2018 ), pollination (Clout & Hay, 1989 ) and pest control (Kellermann et al, 2008 ). Birds are an important taxon to study the influence of forest structure and composition because they are habitat quality indicators and respond relatively quickly to environmental change (Boesing et al, 2018 ; Cosset et al, 2020 ). In the last decade, most studies investigating the effects of either forest structure or composition on bird species diversity at a landscape level have mainly focussed on the functional biodiversity aspect (Benedetti et al, 2020 ; Broms et al, 2016 ; Bueno et al, 2018 ; Burivalova et al, 2015 ; Ehlers Smith et al, 2017a , 2018 ; Gumede, Ehlers Smith, Ngcobo, et al, 2022 ; Ngcobo et al, 2022 ).…”