How do diversity and functional nestedness of bird communities respond to changes in the landscape caused by eucalyptus plantations?

Abstract

Abstract:Studies of functional diversity can help to understand processes that determine the presence of species in different habitats. Measurement of functional diversity in silviculture areas is important because different functional traits can show different responses to this landscape alteration, and therefore ecological functions can be affected. This study evaluated functional and taxonomic differences in bird assemblages in a native forest and eucalyptus plantations, and also assessed the functional nestedness of the bird species. We censused birds in eucalyptus plantations of four different ages, and also in a native forest. The results showed higher functional and taxonomic diversity of birds in the native forest than in plantations and higher similarity of functional traits between plantations of different ages. The high functional diversity in the native forest indicates a greater variety of functional traits, resulting in greater functional complementarity than in plantations. The association of some traits with the native forest, such as nectarivory and foraging in air, indicates the importance of native habitats in maintaining species and functions related to such traits. Already, species traits in eucalyptus plantations represent a subset of those that were recorded in the native forest, indicating that some functions are maintained in plantations. Our results demonstrate that the species occurrence in the plantations and native forest is determined by species traits. Thus, the maintenance of some functions in plantations is provided, although there is a higher functional diversity in native forest. Piacentini et al. (2015). Nomenclature:

Do functional and phylogenetic nestedness follow the same mechanisms as taxonomic nestedness? Evidence from amphibians in the largest archipelago of China

“…To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic nestedness simultaneously. So far, previous studies often focused on taxonomic nestedness of fauna assemblages (e.g., Cook & Quinn, 1995; Matthews, Cottee‐Jones, et al, 2015; Wright et al, 1998), while only a few studies begin to examine functional or phylogenetic nestedness (Almeida‐Gomes et al, 2019; Jacoboski et al, 2016; Matthews, Sheard, et al, 2015). In our study, the functional and phylogenetic nestedness analyses showed that isolation was an additional nestedness driver, whereas this process was overlooked when only considered taxonomic nestedness.…”

“…As illustrated by Melo et al (2014) and similar studies (e.g. Almeida‐Gomes et al, 2019; Jacoboski et al, 2016), nestedness from multiple facets of biodiversity can help reveal the linkages between species' requirements and their environment, which could offer more information on mechanisms underlying community assembly than those focused purely on species taxonomic composition.…”

“…Traditional nestedness studies consider all species as identical and independent units, whereas in natural systems species are generally ecologically and phylogenetically distinctive in their roles (Forest et al, 2007; Vellend et al, 2010). For instance, the variation in functional traits of species across assemblages, that is functional diversity, is generally used to infer ecosystem processes such as stability and productivity (Almeida‐Gomes et al, 2019; Jacoboski et al, 2016). As species within a community may perform similar functions (e.g.…”

Effects of natural forest and tree plantations on leaf‐litter frog assemblages in Southern Brazil

“…Although tree plantations may maintain some of the characteristics of natural forests, such as tall and high canopy cover, and deep litter layer, they are typically unsuitable for many edge-intolerant species and forest specialists (Filloy et al 2010;Dias et al 2013), leading to a decline in the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of the local assemblages (Machado et al 2012;Gangenova et al 2018;Jacoboski et al 2019). Such declines caused by the local extinction of intolerant and specialist species triggered by the establishment of tree plantations have been observed for mammals (Barlow et al 2007a;Yue et al 2015), birds (Dias et al 2013;Corbelli et al 2015;Jacoboski et al 2016Jacoboski et al , 2019, reptiles (Saccol et al 2017) and anurans (Saccol et al 2017;Gangenova et al 2018). In the specific case of the anurans, the effects of tree plantations on leaf-litter frog assemblages are still poorly understood (e.g.…”

Eucalyptus plantations in temperate grasslands: responses of taxonomic and functional diversity of plant communities to environmental changes

“…Several studies have already underlined the negative effects on native species and their related ecosystem functions due to the expansion of forest plantations (Tererai et al, 2013). Besides, the majority of studies on biodiversity changes among different plantation ages have been conducted mainly in forest biomes (Barlow et al, 2007;Jacoboski et al, 2016;Proença et al, 2010;Wu et al, 2015), showing that mature plantations contribute to maintain biodiversity better than young plantations. The opposite pattern was observed for bird and ant communities in tree plantations developed in grassland sites, where the richness and abundance were the lowest in mature plantations and highest in the grasslands (Corbelli et al, 2015;Filloy et al, 2010;Phifer et al, 2016;Santoandré et al, 2019).…”