Bird Community Changes in Response to Single and Repeated Fires in a Lowland Tropical Rainforest of Eastern Borneo

Abstract

Abstract. Our current understanding of bird community responses to tropical forest fires is limited and strongly geographically biased towards South America. Here we used the circular plot method to carry out complete bird inventories in undisturbed, once burned (1998) and twice burned forests (1983 and 1998) in East Kalimantan (Indonesia). Additionally, environmental variables were measured within a 25 m radius of each plot. Three years after fire the number of birds and bird species were similar for undisturbed and burned forests, but species diversity and turnover were significantly lower in the burned forests. The bird species composition also differed significantly between undisturbed and burned forests, with a strong decline of closed forest preferring bird species accompanied by a strong increase in degraded forest preferring species in burned forests. These differences were strongly related to differences in environmental conditions such as shifts in vegetation cover and layering and differences in ground and understorey vegetation structure. We also found significant shifts in body mass distribution, foraging height and feeding guilds between the bird communities in unburned and burned forests. Surprisingly, repeated burning did not lead to increasing impoverishment of the avifauna, and both once and twice burned forests still contained most of the bird species that were also present in undisturbed forest, even though their densities were considerably lowered.

Discrimination of vegetation strata in a multi-layered Mediterranean forest ecosystem using height and intensity information derived from airborne laser scanning

“…fire and ungulates) or anthropogenic (e.g. forestry practices) disturbances to the understory vegetation could further have cascading effects at higher trophic levels [Mitchell and Kirby, 1989;Allombert et al, 2005b,a;Camprodon and Brotons, 2006b;Slik and Van Balen, 2006]. Descriptors of the vertical stratification of forest ecosystems could thus be used as quantitative indicators for the assessment of biodiversity related to certain taxonomic groups such as plants, insects and birds [Bergs, 2004].…”

Biomass burning, humans and climate change in Southeast Asia

“…Some groups, notably small mammals, and amphibians, increase in abundance or diversity, while others (e.g., birds, insects and some primates) decline (Barlow et al 2002;Fredericksen and Fredericksen 2002;O'Brien et al 2003;Cleary and Genner 2004;Slik and van Balen 2006;Sodhi and Smith 2007). Adeney et al (2006) report that avian impacts on the Indonesian island of Sumatra were highly taxon and guild specific, with insectivorous, understorey birds affected most severely.…”

Tree diversity, composition, forest structure and aboveground biomass dynamics after single and repeated fire in a Bornean rain forest

“…DiVerences in dispersal abilities of late successional tree species into the burned forest from the unburned forest might further enhance diVerences in species composition between unburned and burned forest recruits during initial Wre succession. This could occur, for example, by avoidance of burned forest by certain frugivores or general diVerences in animal abundances (Barlow et al 2002;Fredericksen and Fredericksen 2002;Slik and van Balen 2006).…”