A bird survey in a transitional area between two major conservation hotspots in southeastern Brazil

Abstract

Transitional areas may have higher species richness than those located within established environments, as these ecotones provide a variety of resources that facilitate the maintenance of specific fauna. However, they tend to be overlooked in wildlife surveys. In this context, the western region of the state of São Paulo in Brazil is important because it contains areas of ecological transition between 2 major conservation hotspots in Brazil: the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado. We surveyed the avifauna in a transitional area between these domains, using qualitative and quantitative methods between December 2016 and February 2019. We documented 220 species, of which 7 are endemic to the Atlantic Forest and 4 are endemic to the Cerrado. In addition, we documented 9 species that are threatened at some level (regional, national, or global), demonstrating the high conservation value of this area for birds. Therefore, our results show the potential of transitional areas for maintaining regional biodiversity.

Mesoscale bird distribution pattern in montane phytophysiognomies along an ecotone between two hotspots

“…About composition, a total of eight taxa among the records are threatened, including the species Urubitinga coronata, Spizaetus tyrannus, Amazona vinacea, Geositta poeciloptera, Culicivora caudacuta, Alectrurus tricolor, Phibalura flavirostris, Anthus nattereri and Coryphaspiza melanotis (Fundação Biodiversitas, 2008; International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN], 2020; and similar to Sementili-Cardoso et al, 2019). Furthermore, the species Malacoptila striata, Aratinga auricapillus, Sarcoramphus papa, Platalea ajaja and Mycteria americana are in the almost threatened category (Lopes et al, 2017), thus showing the importance of this region for the conservation of the Brazilian bird community (Moura et al, 2021), and also highlighting the urgency of creating protected areas for wildlife conservation in the studied region (as proposed by Zambaldi, Louzada, Carvalho, & Scolforo, 2011).…”

“…The bird distribution on mountain landscapes associated to ecotonal regions are not yet fully resolved and described. For instance, there is little understanding of separated situations [only mountain (Santillán et al, 2020;Thom et al, 2020) or only ecotonal (Gonçalves, Santos, Cerqueira, Juen, & Bispo, 2017;Sementili-Cardoso, Vianna, Gerotti, & Donatelli, 2019)]. Given this panorama, this study aimed to present and analyse the bird richness, composition (by beta diversity), and structure between phytophysiognomies of an ecotonal montane landscape of southeastern Brazil in South America on a meso-scale and in a wide sampling over a decade of ornithological observations and records.…”

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

“…Transitional areas, as the Central Espinhaço Range, tend to harbor higher species richness and abundance, because they support overlapping communities that would normally be restricted to isolated ecosystems (Kark et al 2007, Vitorino et al 2018, Sementili-Cardoso et al 2019). However, these transitional areas tend to receive less attention in biodiversity research than distinct ecosystems (Sementili-Cardoso et al 2019).…”