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Structurally complex farms support high avian functional diversity in tropical montane Ethiopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2013

Aaron D. Gove ,
Kristoffer Hylander ,
Sileshi Nemomissa ,
Anteneh Shimelis  and
Woldeyohannes Enkossa
Aaron D. Gove*
Affiliation:
Department of Botany, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
Kristoffer Hylander
Affiliation:
Department of Botany, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
Sileshi Nemomissa
Affiliation:
Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management Programme Unit, P.O. Box 3434, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Anteneh Shimelis
Affiliation:
Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management Programme Unit, P.O. Box 3434, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Woldeyohannes Enkossa
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Mettu College of Teachers Education, PO Box 44, Oromia, Ethiopia
*
1Corresponding author. Current address: Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia. Email: a.gove@curtin.edu.au
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Abstract:

Of all feeding guilds, understorey insectivores are thought to be most sensitive to disturbance and forest conversion. We compared the composition of bird feeding guilds in tropical forest fragments with adjacent agro-ecosystems in a montane region of south-west Ethiopia. We used a series of point counts to survey birds in 19 agriculture and 19 forest sites and recorded tree species within each farm across an area of 40 × 35 km. Insectivores (~17 spp. per plot), frugivores (~3 spp. per plot) and omnivores (~5 spp. per plot) maintained species density across habitats, while granivores and nectarivores increased in the agricultural sites by factors of 7 and 3 respectively. Species accumulation curves of each guild were equal or steeper in agriculture, suggesting that agricultural and forest landscapes were equally heterogeneous for all bird guilds. Counter to most published studies, we found no decline in insectivore species richness with forest conversion. However, species composition differed between the two habitats, with certain forest specialists replaced by other species within each feeding guild. We suggest that the lack of difference in insectivorous species numbers between forest and agriculture in this region is due to the benign nature of the agricultural habitat, but also due to a regional species pool which contains many bird species which are adapted to open habitats.

Keywords

Africaagro-ecosystemavifaunafeeding guildsspecies poolremnant trees
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 87 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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