Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Habitat loss is the dominant threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in terrestrial environments. In this study, we used an a priori classification of bird species based on their dependence on native forest habitats (forest-specialist and habitat generalists) and specific food resources (fr...

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Main Authors:	Morante-Filho, José Carlos, Faria, Deborah, Mariano-Neto, Eduardo, Rhodes, Jonathan
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471271/

id	pubmed-4471271
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-44712712015-06-29 Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest Morante-Filho, José Carlos Faria, Deborah Mariano-Neto, Eduardo Rhodes, Jonathan Research Article Habitat loss is the dominant threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in terrestrial environments. In this study, we used an a priori classification of bird species based on their dependence on native forest habitats (forest-specialist and habitat generalists) and specific food resources (frugivores and insectivores) to evaluate their responses to forest cover reduction in landscapes in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. From the patch-landscapes approach, we delimited 40 forest sites, and quantified the percentage of native forest within a 2 km radius around the center of each site (from 6 - 85%). At each site, we sampled birds using the point-count method. We used a null model, a generalized linear model and a four-parameter logistic model to evaluate the relationship between richness and abundance of the bird groups and the native forest amount. A piecewise model was then used to determine the threshold value for bird groups that showed nonlinear responses. The richness and abundance of the bird community as a whole were not affected by changes in forest cover in this region. However, a decrease in forest cover had a negative effect on diversity of forest-specialist, frugivorous and insectivorous birds, and a positive effect on generalist birds. The species richness and abundance of all ecological groups were nonlinearly related to forest reduction and showed similar threshold values, i.e., there were abrupt changes in individuals and species numbers when forest amount was less than approximately 50%. Forest sites within landscapes with forest cover that was less than 50% contained a different bird species composition than more extensively forested sites and had fewer forest-specialist species and higher beta-diversity. Our study demonstrated the pervasive effect of forest reduction on bird communities in one of the most important hotspots for bird conservation and shows that many vulnerable species require extensive forest cover to persist. Public Library of Science 2015-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4471271/ /pubmed/26083245 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128923 Text en © 2015 Morante-Filho et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Morante-Filho, José Carlos Faria, Deborah Mariano-Neto, Eduardo Rhodes, Jonathan
spellingShingle	Morante-Filho, José Carlos Faria, Deborah Mariano-Neto, Eduardo Rhodes, Jonathan Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
author_facet	Morante-Filho, José Carlos Faria, Deborah Mariano-Neto, Eduardo Rhodes, Jonathan
author_sort	Morante-Filho, José Carlos
title	Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
title_short	Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
title_full	Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
title_fullStr	Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
title_full_unstemmed	Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
title_sort	birds in anthropogenic landscapes: the responses of ecological groups to forest loss in the brazilian atlantic forest
description	Habitat loss is the dominant threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in terrestrial environments. In this study, we used an a priori classification of bird species based on their dependence on native forest habitats (forest-specialist and habitat generalists) and specific food resources (frugivores and insectivores) to evaluate their responses to forest cover reduction in landscapes in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. From the patch-landscapes approach, we delimited 40 forest sites, and quantified the percentage of native forest within a 2 km radius around the center of each site (from 6 - 85%). At each site, we sampled birds using the point-count method. We used a null model, a generalized linear model and a four-parameter logistic model to evaluate the relationship between richness and abundance of the bird groups and the native forest amount. A piecewise model was then used to determine the threshold value for bird groups that showed nonlinear responses. The richness and abundance of the bird community as a whole were not affected by changes in forest cover in this region. However, a decrease in forest cover had a negative effect on diversity of forest-specialist, frugivorous and insectivorous birds, and a positive effect on generalist birds. The species richness and abundance of all ecological groups were nonlinearly related to forest reduction and showed similar threshold values, i.e., there were abrupt changes in individuals and species numbers when forest amount was less than approximately 50%. Forest sites within landscapes with forest cover that was less than 50% contained a different bird species composition than more extensively forested sites and had fewer forest-specialist species and higher beta-diversity. Our study demonstrated the pervasive effect of forest reduction on bird communities in one of the most important hotspots for bird conservation and shows that many vulnerable species require extensive forest cover to persist.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471271/
_version_	1613236981042511872

Birds in Anthropogenic Landscapes: The Responses of Ecological Groups to Forest Loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

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