Interactive effects of elevation and newly paved road on avian community composition in a scientific reserve, Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea

Miller, Shannon C.; Wiethase, Joris; Etingue, Amancio Motove; Franklin, Elaine; Fero, Maximilliano; Wolfe, Jared D.; Gonder, Mary Katherine; Powell, Luke L.

doi:10.1111/btp.13014

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 124 publications

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“…Our data provides baseline information for future monitoring of bird community shifts and species turnover at TMW. In line with Miller et al (2021), we suggest that the insectivores, which appear to be more sensitive to disturbance should be used as focal species for future assessment of disturbance impacts.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Effect of disturbance on bird feeding guilds in a West African dry forest

Yilangai

Abalaka²,

Nsor

et al. 2023

Afr J Ecol

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West African birds have been declining due to intensive deforestation, yet how bird communities respond to such habitat modification remains understudied in this region. We used point transects to survey bird species in the undisturbed and disturbed edges of Tula Mountains Woodland (TMW), in order to examine responses of bird feeding guilds to disturbance. We found significantly more species in the disturbed

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Effect of disturbance on bird feeding guilds in a West African dry forest

Yilangai

Abalaka²,

Nsor

et al. 2023

Afr J Ecol

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“…To conduct a more thorough study of the fauna visiting trees, it would be necessary to implement camera traps in canopies at all different forests. The sampling must be improved with more fruiting trees by patch and forest type along the road, and at a greater distance (> 1 km) in the interior (see Miller et al, 2021). Cameras should be set up at different heights to gain greater information about arboreal animals, i.e., small to large, diurnal and nocturnal, visiting the tree crowns or not (Moore et al, 2021;Zhu et al, 2021).…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roads Disrupt Frugivory and Seed Removal in Tropical Animal-Dispersed Plants in French Guiana

et al. 2022

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Ecological interactions are being affected at unprecedented rates by human activities in tropical forests. Yet, the continuity of ecological functions provided by animals, such as seed dispersal, is crucial for forest regeneration and species resilience to anthropogenic pressures. The construction of new roads in tropical forests is one of the main boosters of habitat destruction as it facilitates human access to previously isolated areas and increases defaunation and loss of ecological functions. It, therefore, becomes increasingly urgent to rapidly assess how recently opened roads and associated anthropogenic activities affect ecological processes in natural habitats, so that appropriate management measures to conserve diversity can be taken. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effects of anthropogenic pressures on the health status of a mature rainforest crossed by a newly opened road in French Guiana. For this, we combined different methods to conduct a rapid assessment of the forest’s health status. Firstly, we evaluated the activity of frugivores using camera traps deployed in four forest patches located near (<1 km) ecological corridors preserved as canopy bridges over the road during the fruiting periods of four animal-dispersed tree species. Secondly, we analyzed the fate of seeds enclosed in animal-dispersed tropical fruits by calculating the proportions of fruits consumed and seeds removed (either dispersed or predated) by frugivores. Results show that the proportion of fruits opened and consumed was lower in the forest areas located near the road than in the control forest, and this difference was more significant for plant species strictly dependent on large-bodied primates for seed dispersal than for species relying on both primates and birds. Camera traps showed the presence of small primates and kinkajous feeding on Virola fruits in the forest impacted by the road, where large primates were absent. It is thus likely that smaller frugivores exert a compensatory effect that maintains ecological functions near the road. Despite efforts made to preserve forest continuity through ecological corridors, anthropogenic pressures associated with road proximity are affecting wildlife and disrupting associated ecological functions crucial for plant regeneration, contributing to further forest degradation.

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“…Worldwide, mountain regions are not only rich in biodiversity ( Brighenti et al., 2021 ), but also often socially and economically underdeveloped ( Miller et al., 2021 ). To support and promote social and economic development, the number of roads in pristine wilderness mountain regions is increasing ( Laurance and Balmford, 2013 ) and becoming an increasingly prevalent and influential form of human disturbance in natural ecosystems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the taxonomic homogenization of road-influenced plant assemblages in the Qionglai mountain range: A functional and phylogenetic perspective

Luo²,

Xie³

et al. 2023

Front. Plant Sci.

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As an increasingly prevalent form of human activity, roads drive the taxonomic homogenization of mountain plant assemblages, threatening global biodiversity. However, little is known about how mountain roads impact functional and phylogenetic beta diversity and how these effects are related to taxonomic homogenization. To understand the mechanism of taxonomic homogenization triggered by mountain roads, we used species absence/presence data from 76 plots (2 m*50 m) and values for 12 traits measured on 978 species from the interior and roadside communities in the Qionglai mountain range, one of the temperate regions with the highest plant species richness in the world. We used a structural equation modeling approach (SEM) to consider several surrogates of road disturbance (changes in soil physicochemical properties and the presence or absence of roads) and the causal relationship between three facets of beta diversity (taxonomic beta diversity, TBD; functional beta diversity, FBD and phylogenetic beta diversity, PBD). The results suggest that TBD, FBD and PBD respond inconsistently to mountain roads, despite strong positive correlations between the three facets of plant beta diversity in the study area. Compared with the interior community, the βtotal.tax and βtotal.func of the roadside community decreased by 2.54% and 2.22%, respectively, which were related to the reduction of species and trait richness differences and replacements; however, we did not find the same results when assessing the changes in βtotal.phy, which represents tip-weighted PBD (twPBD). Furthermore, the largest effect of roads on beta diversity was reflected in basal-weighted PBD (bwPBD), which decreased by 9.97%, indicating that those species with fewer extant relatives and longer evolutionary histories are more sensitive to mountain roads. Therefore, it is necessary to take targeted protection measures for ancient species in roadside communities. In addition, we believe that it is still necessary to take measures to prevent the further dispersal of nonnative species, although the presence of non-native species in roadside plots has led to small changes in three facets of beta diversity. There were causal relationships between the three facets of beta diversity, but their intensity and sign different in the SEM of different components of beta diversity (i.e., richness difference and replacement). Our findings suggest that the homogenization of community species composition at the landscape scale arises by a combination of adaptive responses of the functional traits of organisms to environmental consistency (e.g., reduced the differences in soil variables) caused by roads and resorting or reassembly of community clades composition due to environmental filtering. These results contribute to our comprehensive understanding of the impact of mountain roads on plant diversity, which highlights the complex relationship between human pressure and biodiversity loss.

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Interactive effects of elevation and newly paved road on avian community composition in a scientific reserve, Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea

Cited by 5 publications

References 124 publications

Effect of disturbance on bird feeding guilds in a West African dry forest

Effect of disturbance on bird feeding guilds in a West African dry forest

Roads Disrupt Frugivory and Seed Removal in Tropical Animal-Dispersed Plants in French Guiana

Understanding the taxonomic homogenization of road-influenced plant assemblages in the Qionglai mountain range: A functional and phylogenetic perspective

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