Can habitat specialization patterns of Neotropical birds highlight vulnerable areas for conservation in the Atlantic rainforest, southern Brazil?

Anjos, Luiz dos; Collins, Cathy D.; Holt, Robert D.; Volpato, Graziele Hernandes; Lopes, Edson Varga; Bochio, Gabriela Menezes

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2015.01.016

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Understanding the ecological drivers underlying avian distributions is critical to evaluate the overall ecological integrity of ecosystems because birds are highly specialized, occupy a variety of ecological niches, have key ecological functions, and are variably susceptible to disturbance (Komar, 2006;S ßekercioglu, 2006a, 2006bAnjos et al, 2015;Pollock et al, 2014;Pavlacky et al, 2014). Bird extinction risk increases with ecological specialization (S ßekercioglu, 2011).…”

Section: Tropical Forest Declines and Implications For Bird Populationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Importance of Ethiopian shade coffee farms for forest bird conservation

Buechley

Şekercioğlu

Atickem

et al. 2015

Biological Conservation

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a b s t r a c tCoffee is the most important tropical commodity and is grown in high-priority areas for biological conservation. There is abundant literature on the conservation value of coffee farms internationally, but there has been little research on this topic in Africa. Ethiopia is a diverse and little-studied country with high levels of avian endemism, pressing conservation challenges, and where Coffea arabica originated. We sampled bird communities in shade coffee farms and moist evergreen Afromontane forest in Ethiopia utilizing standard mist netting procedures at seven sites over three years to evaluate bird species richness, diversity and community structure. Although species diversity did not differ between shade coffee and forest, shade coffee farms had over double the species richness of forest sites and all but one of the nine Palearctic migratory species were captured only in shade coffee. There was a greater relative abundance of forest specialists and understory insectivores in forest, demonstrating that little-disturbed forest is critical for sustaining these at-risk groups of birds. Nonetheless, all species recorded in primary forest control sites were also recorded in shade coffee, indicating that Ethiopian shade coffee is perhaps the most ''bird-friendly'' coffee in the world. This is an important finding for efforts to conserve forest birds in Africa, and for shade coffee farmers that may benefit from avian pest regulation and biodiversityfriendly coffee certifications.

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Section: Tropical Forest Declines and Implications For Bird Populationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Importance of Ethiopian shade coffee farms for forest bird conservation

Buechley

Şekercioğlu

Atickem

et al. 2015

Biological Conservation

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“…Tropical birds exhibit high species and functional richness, a wide variety of habitat use and varying degrees of sensitivity to changes in the landscape [ 22 , 23 ]. As a result, tropical birds have been considered good bioindicators and have been used to measure habitat quality [ 24 – 26 ] especially habitat specialist birds, such as forest understory insectivores [ 27 ]. Thus, studies of landscape ecology using forest birds hold the potential to contribute to the understanding and conservation of other groups of organisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does scale matter? The influence of three-level spatial scales on forest bird occurrence in a tropical landscape

et al. 2018

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Consequences of habitat fragmentation for species occurrence are amongst the most important issues in landscape and conservation ecology. Empirical and theoretical studies have demonstrated that the total amount of habitat, patch size and connectivity have nonlinear effects on species survival on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Therefore, population models need to incorporate multiple scales, which can be extremely valuable to prioritizing conservation efforts in these changing landscapes. We tested how the amount and configuration of habitat affect understory bird species occurrence using fine to broad-scale habitat features. We used playback to sample birds in 13 Atlantic Forest fragments in Southeast Brazil. Microhabitat, local and regional landscape variables were tested against bird occurrence. Our results demonstrate that different bird species respond to different habitat scales. Sclerurus scansor, Xiphorhynchus fuscus, Automolus leucophthalmus, Drymophila ochropyga, Mackenziaena leachii, and Chiroxiphia caudata were most influenced by tree height and diameter (microhabitat characteristics), S. scansor, F. serrana and Pyriglena leucoptera were most influenced by forest cover and red-edge reflectance(local-scale metrics) and S. scansor, X. fuscus, D. ochropyga, P. leucoptera, F. serrana and M. leachii had area, core area and functional connectivity index (landscape features) as stronger predictors of species occurrence. Small forest fragments acted as corridors and increased overall connectivity of the entire community. The most effective means of maintaining long-term population connectivity of understory birds involves retaining both large and small areas, including forests with different micro-habitat characteristics. No management approach based on a single-scale would benefit all species. Implementing multiscale conservation strategies are necessary for maintaining long-term viability of forest birds on tropical landscapes.

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“…Such selective extinction processes not only lead to shifts in species richness, assemblage composition, and relative abundance, but can also alter ecological processes and ecosystem services provided by birds (e.g., seed dispersal, pollination, and nutrient cycling; Chapin et al 1998, Lens et al 2002, Sekercioglu 2011, Pesendorfer et al 2016. Therefore, understanding the ecological partitioning of avian diversity in areas with high species richness and endemism, such as the Bale Mountains, is critical for evaluating the overall ecological integrity of these ecosystems and designing appropriate conservation approaches (dos Anjos et al 2015, Pavlacky et al 2015, Pollock et al 2015.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%