First avifaunal survey of a Cerrado dry forest enclave on the right bank of the São Francisco River, Minas Gerais, Brazil, with insights on geographic variation of some species

Abstract

Abstract. Cerrado dry forest enclaves have been treated as an endemic bird area. In the last years, some avifaunal surveys have been conducted in dry forests on the left bank of the São Francisco River, eastern Brazil. Nevertheless, there is a gap of detailed ornithological surveys in the Cerrado dry forest enclaves on the right bank of this river. Here, we present the first avifaunal survey of a Cerrado dry forest enclave on the right bank of the São Francisco River. The study area, named "Curral de Pedras", comprises a dry forest enclave and other associated habitats in central Minas Gerais state, southeastern Brazil. We recorded 172 bird species; nine taxa have their ranges strongly associated to the Caatinga; six present their ranges associated to the Atlantic Forest and one is typical of the Cerrado. Important records are those of Campylopterus calcirupicola, a recently described species associated with dry forests of central Brazil, and Celeus ochraceus, collected in its southernmost range. Furthermore, we obtained specimens that present intermediate phenotypes between the following woodcreeper species: Lepidocolaptes squamatus / L. wagleri and Xiphocolaptes albicollis / X. falcirostris. Those records reinforce the need of further sampling and collecting activities in those dry forest enclaves aiming future researches in taxonomy, geographic variation, and phylogeography.

Birds of Parque Estadual Do Biribiri, Central Espinhaço Range, Brazil

“…We highlight the presence of three species (A. scutatus, E. longicauda and P. superciliaris), which were considered endemic to the campos rupestres as well as to the Cerrado biome in previous studies (Silva & Bates 2002, Rodrigues et al 2005. However, according to Vasconcelos (2018), these species would be better characterized as endemic to the eastern Brazilian mountaintops than to any specific morphoclimatic domain. Among the endemic species of the Cerrado observed in the PEBI, two are considered globally Near Threatened: P. caerulescens and N. fasciata, both are open Cerrado dwellers (Bencke et al 2006) and little is known about the biology of these species (but see Duca and Marini (2014) that investigates the territorial system of N. fasciata in central's Brazil savanna).…”

“…Endemic species are usually negatively affected by habitat loss and fragmentation (Sementili-Cardoso et al 2019), thus records of endemic species can be an indicative of the quality of the habitats in the study area. Among the typical Caatinga birds recorded in the PEBI, M. strigilatus and S. cristatus (Vasconcelos & D'Angelo Neto 2018) were observed with reasonably frequency in semideciduous forests (FO = 29 and 31% of the total, respectively). Both, M. strigilatus and S. cristatus, are Caatinga endemic species, whose original ranges known so far, are associated with the limits of this biogeographic province (Vasconcelos et al 2012, Vasconcelos & D'Angelo Neto 2018.…”

Ficha de Knipolegus franciscanus

“…Foi descrito como subespécie de K. aterrimus e elevado à condição de espécie plena (Silva, 1989;Silva & Oren, 1992). A espécie é considerada incomum (Stotz et al, 1996) e a tendência populacional parece ser de declínio (BirdLife International, 2017).…”