Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:51:24.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Diversity of bird feeding guilds in relation to habitat heterogeneity and land-use cover in a human-modified landscape in southern Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2012

Esteban Pineda-Diez de Bonilla ,
Jorge L. León-Cortés  and
José Luis Rangel-Salazar
Esteban Pineda-Diez de Bonilla
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ecología y Sistemática Terrestres, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Apartado Postal 63, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 29200 Chiapas, México
Jorge L. León-Cortés*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ecología y Sistemática Terrestres, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Apartado Postal 63, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 29200 Chiapas, México
José Luis Rangel-Salazar
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ecología y Sistemática Terrestres, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Apartado Postal 63, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, 29200 Chiapas, México
*
1Corresponding author. Email: jleon@ecosur.mx
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Habitat heterogeneity is an important ecological determinant of species richness. We evaluated the diversity within bird feeding guilds as related to habitat heterogeneity and land-use cover in a human-modified tropical landscape. To quantify this process, fine-scale bird census and habitat heterogeneity data were collected for a bird community in a 22.5-km2 fragmented landscape in southern Mexico. Land-use cover data derived from field surveys were used to calculate habitat heterogeneity index values and the extent of each land-use cover type in 239 grid cells of 300 × 300 m. Bird diversity values were obtained based on 1195 point-counts in these cells. Product-moment correlations and linear regression analyses were used to evaluate the relationship between bird-guild diversity values and habitat heterogeneity. A total of 109 resident bird species grouped in six feeding guilds were recorded: insectivores (42%), frugivores (21%), granivores (17%), nectarivores (9%), omnivores (8%) and carnivores (3%). Diversity values for the entire bird community were significantly positively related to habitat heterogeneity, but feeding guilds showed contrasting responses to habitat heterogeneity and the amount of land-use cover: insectivores and frugivores were more diverse and abundant in secondary forests than in any other land-cover. Our findings illustrate the importance of small landscape fragments as potential key refuges for the most diverse and specialized feeding guilds, such as granivores and insectivores.

Keywords

Chiapasfragmentationgeneralized least-squaresland-use coverMoran's Itropical dry forest
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , July 2012 , pp. 369 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

ANDERSON, D. L. 2001. Landscape heterogeneity and diurnal raptor diversity in Honduras: the role of indigenous shifting cultivation. Biotropica 33:511–519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ANSELIN, L., SYABRI, I. & KHO, Y. 2005. GeoDa: an introduction to spatial data analysis. Geographical Analysis 38:5–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ARELLANO, L., LEÓN–CORTÉS, J. L. & HALFFTER, G. 2008. Response of dung beetle assemblages to landscape structure in remnant natural and modified habitats in southern Mexico. Insect Conservation and Diversity 1:253–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BAILEY, S. A., HORNER-DEVINE, M. C., LUCK, G., MOORE, L. A., CARMEY, K. M., ANDERSON, S., BETRUS, C. & FLEISHMAN, E. 2004. Primary productivity and species richness: relationships among functional guilds, residency groups and vagility classes at multiple spatial scales. Ecography 27:207–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BASCOMPTE, J. & RODRÍGUEZ, M. A. 2001. Habitat patchiness and plant species richness. Ecology Letters 4:417–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BLAKE, J. G. & LOISELLE, B. A. 2001. Bird assemblages in second-growth and old-growth forests, Costa Rica: perspectives from mist nets and point counts. Auk 118:304–326CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BREEDLOVE, D. E. 1981. Flora of Chiapas. Part 1. Introduction to the Flora of Chiapas. The California Academy of Sciences. 35 pp.Google Scholar
BUCKLAND, S. T. 2006. Point transect surveys for songbirds: robust methodologies. Auk 123:345–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CABALLERO, U. & LEÓN-CORTÉS, J. L. 2012. High diversity beetle assemblages attracted to carrion and dung in threatened tropical oak forests in Southern Mexico. Journal of Insect Conservation. DOI: 10.1007/s10841-011-9439-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
CLERGEAU, P., JOKIMÄKI, J. & SAVARD, J. L. 2001. Are urban bird communities influenced by the bird diversity of adjacent landscapes? Journal of Applied Ecology 38:1122–1134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CRAMER, M. J. & WILLIG, M. R. 2005. Habitat heterogeneity, species diversity and null models.Oikos 108:209–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ESTRADA, A., CAMMARANO, P. & COATES-ESTRADA, R. 2000. Bird species richness in vegetation fences and in strips of residual rain forest vegetation at Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. Biodiversity and Conservation 9:1399–1416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FAHRIG, L. & NUTTLE, W. K. 2005. Population ecology in spatially heterogeneous environments. Pp. 95–118 in Lovett, G. M., Turner, M. G., Jones, C. G. & Weathers, K. C. (eds.). Ecosystem function in heterogeneous landscapes. Springer-Verlag, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FARAWAY, J. J. 2004. Linear models with R. Chapman and Hall/CRC, Boca Raton. 229 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FERRER, M. & DONAZAR, J. R. A. 1996. Density dependent fecundity by habitat heterogeneity in an increasing population of Spanish Imperial Eagle. Ecology 77:69–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GARDNER, T. A., BARLOW, J., CHAZDON, R., EWERS, R. M., HARVEY, C. A., PERES, C. A. & SODHI, N. S. 2009. Prospects for tropical forest biodiversity in a human-modified world. Ecology Letters 12:561–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GORDON, C. E. & ORNELAS, J. F. 2000. Comparing endemism and habitat restriction in Mesoamerican tropical deciduous forest birds: implications for biodiversity conservation planning. Bird Conservation International 10:289–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GRAHAM, C. H. & BLAKE, J. G. 2001. Influence of patch- and landscape-level factors on bird assemblages in a fragmented tropical landscape. Ecological Applications 11:1709–1721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GRAY, M. A., BALDAUF, S. L., MAYHEW, P. J. & HILL, J. K. 2006. The response of avian feeding guilds to tropical forest disturbance. Conservation Biology 21:133–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HOWELL, S. N. & WEBB, S. 1995. A guide to the birds of Méxco and Northern Central America. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
HUTTO, R. L., PLETSCHET, S. M. & HENDRICKS, P. 1986. A fixed- radius point count method for nonbreeding and breeding season use. Auk 103:593–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
INEGI. 2001. Ortofotos E15C59D, E15C59E, escala 1:75,000. Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática. Sistema Nacional Estadístico y de Información Geográfica. México.Google Scholar
KEITT, T. H., BJØRNSTAD, O. N., DIXON, P. N. & CITRON-POUSTY, C. 2002. Accounting for spatial pattern when modeling organism environment interactions. Ecography 25:616–625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KOH, C.-N., LEE, P.-F. & LIN, R.-S. 2006. Bird species richness patterns of northern Taiwan: primary productivity, human population density, and habitat heterogeneity. Diversity and Distributions 12:546–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KREBS, J. R., WILSON, J. D., BRADBURY, R. B. & SIRIWARDENA, G. M. 1999. The second Silent Spring? Nature 400:611–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LEÓN-CORTÉS, J. L., PÉREZ-ESPINOZA, F., MARÍN, L. & MOLINA-MARTÍNEZ, A. 2004. Complex habitat requirements and conservation needs of the only extant Baroniinae swallowtail butterfly. Animal Conservation 7:241–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LUCK, G. W. & DAILY, G. C. 2003. Tropical countryside bird assemblages: richness, composition and foraging differ by landscape context. Ecological Applications 13:235–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MCDONALD, J. H. 2009. Handbook of biological statistics. (Second edition). Sparky House Publishing, Baltimore. 287 pp.Google Scholar
MCINTYRE, G. A. 1953. Estimation of plant density using line transects. Journal of Ecology 41:319–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'NEILL, R. V., KRUMMEL, J. R., GARDNER, R. H., SUGIHARA, G., JACKSON, B., DEANGELIS, D. L., MILNE, B. T., TURNER, M. G., ZYGMUNT, B., CHRISTENSEN, S., DALE, V. H. & GRAHAM, R. L. 1988. Indices of landscape pattern. Landscape Ecology 1:153–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ORNELAS, J. F., ARIZMENDI, M. C., NAVARIJO, M. L. & BERLANGA, H. A. 1993. Variability profiles for line transect bird censuses in a tropical dry forest in Mexico. Condor 95:422–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PICKETT, S. T. A. & CADENASSO, M. L. 1995. Landscape ecology: spatial heterogeneity in ecological systems. Science 269:331–334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
PINKUS-RENDÓN, M. A., LEÓN-CORTÉS, J. L. & IBARRA-NÚÑEZ, G. 2006. Spider diversity in a tropical habitat gradient in Chiapas, Mexico. Diversity and Distributions 12:61–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RANGEL-SALAZAR, J. L., ENRÍQUEZ, R. P. L. & WILL, T. 2005. Diversidad de aves en Chiapas: prioridades de investigación para su conservación. Pp. 195–249 in González-Espinosa, M., Ramírez-Marcial, N. & Ruiz-Montoya, L. (eds.). Diversidad biológica de Chiapas. Plaza y Valdés/ECOSUR/COCYTECH, México.Google Scholar
SCALES, B. R. & MARSDEN, S. J. 2008. Biodiversity in small-scale tropical agroforests: a review of species richness and abundance shifts and the factors influencing them. Environmental Conservation 35:160–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SEKERCIOGLU, C. H. 2006. Ecological significance of bird populations. Pp. 15–34 in Del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. & Christie, D. (eds.). Handbook of the birds of the world – Volume 11: Old world flycatchers to old world warblers. Lynx, Barcelona.Google Scholar
SEKERCIOGLU, C. H., DAILY, G. C. & EHRLICH, P. R. 2004. Ecosystem consequences of bird declines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101:18042–18047.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
SIRAMI, C., BROTONS, L. & MARTIN, J. 2008. Spatial extent of bird species response to landscape changes: colonization/extinction dynamics at the community-level in two contrasting habitats. Ecography 31:509–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SOBERÓN, J. M. & LLORENTE, J. B. 1993. The use of species accumulation functions for the prediction of species richness. Conservation Biology 7:480–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TEWS, J., BROSE, U., GRIMM, V., TIELBÖRGER, K., WICHMANN, M. C., SCHWAGER, M. & JELTSCH, F. 2004. Animal species diversity driven by habitat heterogeneity/diversity: the importance of keystone structures. Journal of Biogeography 31:79–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TSCHARNTKE, T., KLEIN, A. M., KRUESS, A., STEFFAN-DEWENTER, I. & THIES, C. 2005. Landscape perspectives on agricultural intensification and biodiversity – ecosystem service management. Ecology Letters 8:857–874.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TSCHARNTKE, T., SEKERCIOGLU, C. H., DIETSCH, T. V., SODHI, N. S., HOEHNAND, P. & TYLIANAKIS, J. M. 2008. Landscape constraints on functional diversity of birds and insects in tropical agroecosystems. Ecology 89:944–951.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
TYLIANAKIS, J. M., RAND, T. A., KAHMEN, A., KLEIN, A.-M., BUCHMANN, N., PERNER, J. & TSCHARNTKE, T. 2008. Resource heterogeneity moderates the biodiversity-function relationship in real world ecosystems. Public Library of Sciences Biology 6:e122.Google Scholar
WHITTINGHAM, M. J., STEPHENS, P. A., BRADBURY, R. B. & FRECKLETON, R. P. 2006. Why do we still use stepwise modelling in ecology and behaviour? Journal of Animal Ecology 75:1182–1189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
ZAR, J. H. 2010. Biostatistical analysis. (Fifth edition). Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River. 944 pp.Google Scholar