The hegemony of the ‘despots’: the control of avifaunas over vast continental areas

Nally, Ralph Mac; Kutt, Alex S.; Eyre, Teresa J.; Perry, Justin; Vanderduys, Eric; Mathieson, Michael T.; Ferguson, Daniel J.; Thomson, James Robertson

doi:10.1111/ddi.12211

Cited by 17 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(70 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…flavigula)-can have substantial impacts on the richness of smaller-bodied native birds through competitive exclusion in modified environments, leading to shifts in assemblages Mac Nally et al, 2014a). We determined the proportion of surveys in which one or both of these species was recorded in a landscape unit (i.e.…”

Section: Bird Data 332mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…through aggressive competitive exclusion, leading to shifts in assemblages within their colonies Mac Nally et al, 2014a). For landscape units at each scale, we determined the proportion of surveys in which one or both of these species was recorded (i.e.…”

Section: Flavigula)-can Have Dramatic Impacts On the Occurrence Of Smmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We expected that this interaction would be important at the finest scale of analysis (25 km 2 ), given a large body of research has documented that these highly-competitive native species are important drivers of bird assemblages in sites (Mac Nally et al, 2014a;Mac Nally et al, 2014b), patches (Maron et al, 2011) and (small) landscapes (25 km 2 ) . However, our results did not support this prediction.…”

Section: Influence Of Landscape Attributes On Species Richness At Difmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, the loss of woodlands on fertile soils has been implicated in the decline of species including the hooded robin (Melanodryas cucullata) and the regent honeyeater (Anthochaera phrygia) (Kvistad et al, 2015), while the importance of these productive habitats for a broader ensemble of declining woodland species in south-east Australia has been widely reported (Watson, 2011;Stevens & Watson, 2013;Bennett et al, 2014). Moreover, non-random habitat loss may indirectly act on woodland birds via the domination of fertile remnants by Manorina honeyeaters, which have a strong effect on the composition of bird communities in modified environments (Maron & Kennedy, 2007;Mac Nally et al, 2014a;Thomson et al, 2015). The (average) loss of one species from fertile and flat landscapes is noteworthy, and likely masks the far more severe disruption to the composition of communities in these landscapes.…”

Section: Landscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Manorina honeyeaters are a unique and exceptional example of hypercompetitive native species, which have benefited greatly from landscape modification (Howes & Maron, 2009;Montague-Drake et al, 2011;Maron et al, 2013;Howes et al, 2014;Mac Nally et al, 2014a;Kutt et al, 2015;Thomson et al, 2015). Indeed, Mac Nally et al (2014a, pg.…”

Section: Thesis Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Implications of vegetation clearing biases for the interpretation of landscape-scale species-area relationships

Simmonds¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vegetation clearing results in the loss of species from landscapes. Indeed, the area of remaining native vegetation is an important determinant of species richness in humanmodified mosaics. Of interest to ecologists and landscape managers is the effect of areathat is, how the number of species a landscape supports changes with the amount of native vegetation, as revealed by the shape and functional form of the species-area relationship. Understanding this is vital for guiding conservation interventions such as setting limits to vegetation clearing or establishing revegetation targets.Crucially though, it is not only vegetation area that affects patterns of species richness at the landscape level-so do environmental attributes such as soil properties and topography. Complicating the matter is the fact that these attributes tend to be correlated ii Second, I explored the extent to which the effect of native vegetation area on species richness differed in 100 km 2 landscapes categorised by attributes such as soil fertility, range in elevation or matrix land use. Using a case study of south-east Australian birds, Ifound that the shape of the species-area relationship varied substantially depending on whether landscapes were, for example, more-or less-topographically variable, or had higher or lower soil fertility. While threshold models depicting a point of sudden change in the effect of area emerged consistently, the amount of vegetation corresponding with observed thresholds differed considerably among landscape types. Therefore, aggregating and analysing species-area data from different landscape types is likely to misrepresent how species richness is affected by vegetation area. This will be exacerbated by clearing biases, because heavily cleared landscapes tend to be characterised by very different attributes to high cover landscapes. When data for the entire study extent were analysed, a remarkable degree of scaleinvariance was observed-namely, a threshold relationship with a change-point at approximately 30% vegetation cover. However, when data were analysed for two regional subsets of the overall dataset, the effect of vegetation area, and the factors moderating this relationship, were scale-dependent. Given this finding, observed thresholds can only reliably be used to guide landscape management at the scale and in the region where the relationship was observed.Finally, I evaluated the implications of accounting for clearing biases when using speciesarea relationships to guide conservation, focussing on a region of Australia undergoing rapid landscape transformation. I found that using observed thresholds from species-area models that do and do not account for landscape attributes yielded different outcomes for landscape-scale species richness conservation, given a scenario of future vegetation loss.Specifically, the number and location of landscapes that could be prioritised for conservation actions varied considerably depending on the species-area model used.This research demonstrates that the eff...

show abstract

Section: Bird Data 332mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Flavigula)-can Have Dramatic Impacts On the Occurrence Of Smmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Influence Of Landscape Attributes On Species Richness At Difmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Landscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Thesis Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Implications of vegetation clearing biases for the interpretation of landscape-scale species-area relationships

Simmonds¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Patch‐scale culls of an overabundant bird defeated by immediate recolonization

Beggs

Tulloch

Pierson

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Overabundant native animals cause a variety of human–wildlife conflicts that can require management to reduce their social, environmental, or economic impacts. Culling is an intuitively attractive management response to overabundance, but poor monitoring of results and costs means that evidence for successful outcomes is often lacking. Furthermore, many culls worldwide have been ineffective or counterproductive due to ecological release mechanisms or compensatory responses by the overabundant species. We completed a controlled, replicated, costed, and rigorously monitored experimental cull of the endemic Australian honeyeater, the Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala). Aggressive exclusion of birds from remnant woodland patches by overabundant Noisy Miners is listed as a Key Threatening Process under Australian conservation legislation due to its impacts on threatened birds. The problem is particularly prevalent in the highly modified agricultural landscapes of eastern Australia. The species impacts avian assemblages at low densities (0.6–0.8 birds/ha) and at a subcontinental scale (>1 million km2). Some ecologists recommend culling as the only management response capable of timely reversal of declines of threatened small woodland birds. We monitored Noisy Miner abundance before and for 12 months after a culling program and found that immediate recolonization from the surrounding landscape negated the impact of the cull. We hypothesize that this is due to a vacuum effect; whereby, birds resident in more marginal habitat around treatment patches move into the vacant territory post‐cull. Modeled mean abundance of Noisy Miners declined by 22% in treatment sites compared to an increase of 4% in control sites in the post‐cull period. Abundance in all sites, however, remained three to five times higher than published ecological impact thresholds. Return on investment analysis indicated no relationship between culling effort and reduction in Noisy Miner abundance. We conclude that culling at a patch scale is not an efficient method of reducing Noisy Miner abundance to levels unlikely to impact threatened woodland birds in the highly modified study landscape, despite estimated costs 18 times lower than another potential management response of revegetation. Our study highlights the importance of building empirical evidence before intuitively attractive but not necessarily ecologically effective management responses are applied more widely.

show abstract

Impact of a ‘reverse keystone species’ on the temporal dynamics of bird communities in Australia

García-Navas,

Bliard,

Ozgul

2024

Biological Conservation

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The hegemony of the ‘despots’: the control of avifaunas over vast continental areas

Cited by 17 publications

References 46 publications

Implications of vegetation clearing biases for the interpretation of landscape-scale species-area relationships

Implications of vegetation clearing biases for the interpretation of landscape-scale species-area relationships

Patch‐scale culls of an overabundant bird defeated by immediate recolonization

Impact of a ‘reverse keystone species’ on the temporal dynamics of bird communities in Australia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About