Coffee cultivation plays a role in biodiversity alteration and conservation in much of the tropics. This is particularly so in Ethiopia, where coffee is an indigenous shrub and a major commodity in national and local trade. In southwestern Ethiopia, coffee (Coffea arabica, "highland coffee") is harvested from both forests (its natural habitat) and from within farmland where it is grown in small patches under isolated shade trees. We investigated the effects of management practices on bird assemblages in each of these systems. We found that bird assemblages in the forest remnants were distinct from those in the farmland even if many species were regularly found in both habitats. Coffee cultivation in open farmlands promoted bird species diversity through the retention of forest trees, while coffee cultivation in forests reduced bird diversity. Forest coffee management may, however, ensure that forest remnants are not converted to other forms of more open agriculture. Certification standards for "ecologically friendly" coffee in Ethiopia need to take this complexity into account.
Abstract:Of all feeding guilds, understorey insectivores are thought to be most sensitive to disturbance and forest conversion. We compared the composition of bird feeding guilds in tropical forest fragments with adjacent agro-ecosystems in a montane region of south-west Ethiopia. We used a series of point counts to survey birds in 19 agriculture and 19 forest sites and recorded tree species within each farm across an area of 40 × 35 km. Insectivores (~17 spp. per plot), frugivores (~3 spp. per plot) and omnivores (~5 spp. per plot) maintained species density across habitats, while granivores and nectarivores increased in the agricultural sites by factors of 7 and 3 respectively. Species accumulation curves of each guild were equal or steeper in agriculture, suggesting that agricultural and forest landscapes were equally heterogeneous for all bird guilds. Counter to most published studies, we found no decline in insectivore species richness with forest conversion. However, species composition differed between the two habitats, with certain forest specialists replaced by other species within each feeding guild. We suggest that the lack of difference in insectivorous species numbers between forest and agriculture in this region is due to the benign nature of the agricultural habitat, but also due to a regional species pool which contains many bird species which are adapted to open habitats.
Field survey data and Landsat satellite imagery were used to evaluate the conservation status of two Juniperus forests (Mankubsa and Arero) in the south Ethiopian Endemic Bird Area. Forest cover and dense woodland decreased in both areas between 1986 and 2002, but rates of habitat change and human impact were greater at Mankubsa than at Arero. We suggest that at Mankubsa increased grazing pressure, agricultural expansion, commercial fuelwood and timber exploitation are threatening forest persistence, while most of the degradation at Arero is because of the grazing of domestic animals. Conservation efforts should focus on creating tree plantations and improving forest resource use efficiency at Mankubsa, while at Arero better results could be obtained by improving pasture quality in the habitats surrounding the forest.
The aim of this study was to examine the effects of livestock grazing on Afromontane grassland bird assemblages in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. Birds were counted along 28 (14 in ungrazed site and 14 in grazed site) 1 2014) and dry season (November 2014). In addition, height and cover of shrubs, grasses and herbs were recorded within 10m ×10m quadrats established along each transect at a distance of 250m. These data were used to abundances of overall assemblages and guilds (habitat, feeding and/or conservation priority guilds) between the ungrazed site and grazed site, and to examine how these patterns are related to grazing-induced veg showed relatively greater species evenness compared to the grazed site, both observed and rarefied species richness estimators showed non assemblage richness between the two sites. Bird assemblage abundance was significantly greater in the grazed site than the ungrazed site, especially during wet season and when seasons were pooled. At guild level however, species richness and/or abundances of grassland habitat specialist, insectivore dietary, and high conservation priority guilds were significantly greater in the ungrazed site compared to the grazed site. Bird assemblages significantly differed between sites and showed significant positive relationships with shrub and grass height. These findings suggest that the effect of grazing on birds of the area is changing assemblage composition rather than resulting into declined assemblage species richness. Thus allowing livestock grazing in the ungrazed site in the future will lead to los of several grassland specialist and high conservation priority species.
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