Loss and gain of the bird species after the establishment of oil palm plantation in South Sumatra

Abstract

The development of oil palm has been documented as one of factor caused deforestation leading to the loss of biodiversity, however, to what extent the impacts of oil palm conversion on biodiversity in South Sumatra remain little-known. To answer this issue, we studied the diversity of bird in the area before and after oil palm established by calculating species number, richness, evenness, similarity, and composition. Secondary forest, shrubs and rubber plantation were identified as area before oil palm establishment through Landsat image analysis, while in the established oil palm plantation area, we classified into the young, mature and old stand of oil palm. We recorded 49 bird species, 25 families and 298 individuals. Our result showed that conversion secondary forest, shrubs and rubber plantation to oil palm plantation resulted in the variation of losing, gaining, and persisting of bird species at both habitats. Losses of bird species varied about 16%-38%, but the loss of bird species was more drastic in shrubs. Gaining of bird species also varied about 12.5% to 45% where conversion rubber plantation to oil palm impacted the highest bird species procuration. Meanwhile, bird species persistence ranged between 38%-50%. Secondary forest as the habitat condition before the establishment of oil palm had the highest bird diversity (33 species), while the palm oil plantations had the lowest bird species (11 species). The most of bird species lost were insectivorous birds. However, bird species gain was also dominated by insectivorous birds. Declines in insectivorous bird species that are important for an ecosystem process service in this study area may not significantly decline in that process service because of the other species in the similar functionally group increase in the response. Calculation of loss and gain of biodiversity as a result of land use change is necessary as a strategy for biodiversity conservation in an agricultural landscape.

The variation of bird diversity in various oil palm land cover in North Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…The study result showed that YOP land cover had the highest H' Index, Dmg Index, the total number of individuals, and the total number of species. Other studies in Kalimantan and Sumatera also showed that young growth oil palm has the highest species diversity compared to medium and old-growth oil palm (Erniwati and Santosa 2019;Yudea and Santosa 2019). Furthermore, harvesting activities in medium and old-growth oil palm land cover caused undergrowth to be less dense than the young growth oil palm plantation.…”

“…Yudea and Santosa (2019) said that conversion from secondary forest and shrubs into oil palm plantations increased bird number of species and bird species composition. At the same time, the conversion also had an impact on species lost that caused by those species cannot fit in oil palm plantation habitat (Azhar et al 2013;Srinivas and Koh 2016;Erniwati and Santosa 2019;Yudea and Santosa 2019). Existing oil palm plantations can be made more hospitable to wildlife through various modifications, even the most wildlife-friendly oil palm plantations are a poor habitat compare to forests (Koh 2008;Gilroy et al 2014;Srinivas and Koh 2016;Kissinger et al 2017).…”

“…Azhar et al (2011) said that secondary forests supported higher species richness and more diverse birds than oil palm landscapes. The study by Erniwati and Santosa (2019), in large palm oil land cover, implied that the lowest number of individuals was on medium-aged palm oil plantations. Santosa et al (2018) said that the highest species diversity was in oil palm plantation conservation areas and followed by smallholding, old-growth oil palm, young growth oil palm.…”

The estimation of mammal species loss and gain from shrubs to oil palm plantations in South Sumatera

“…Meanwhile, to estimate the amount of mammal species loss and gain, analysis was used is making a list of the types of mammals found in each land cover and counting the species number in the land cover before and after oil palm plantation (Nugroho and Santosa, 2018;Erniwati and Santosa, 2019). The species found in this study are also categorized based on feeding guild.…”

“…Meijide et al (2018) stated that the conversion of tropical forests to oil palm plantations also affects the microclimate condition and the loss of biodiversity. The conversion of secondary forests to oil palm plantations impacted on loss and gain of several communities such as bird, mammal, herpetofauna, butterfly, and soil macroinvertebrate (Erniwati and Santosa, 2019;Ginoga et al, 2019;Santosa and Rejeki, 2019;Yeo et al, 2020). Similar to secondary forests, the land cover change from shrubs to oil palm plantation can affect species diversity of tropical vegetation and wildlife species such as herpetofauna and mammal (Nugroho and Santosa, 2018;Hilwan and Santosa, 2019;Rahmadiyanti and Santosa, 2019;Al-Faritsi and Santosa, 2021).…”