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Seasonality in abundance and detection bias of birds in a tropical dry forest in north-eastern South America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2017

Clarisse Caroline de Oliveira e Silva ,
Mauro Pichorim ,
Pedro Teófilo Silva de Moura  and
Leonardo Fernandes França Open the ORCID record for Leonardo Fernandes França [Opens in a new window]
Clarisse Caroline de Oliveira e Silva
Affiliation:
Pós Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação, Universidade Federal Rural do Semiárido, Av. Francisco Mota, CEP 59625-900, Mossoró, RN, Brazil
Mauro Pichorim
Affiliation:
Departamento de Botânica e Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Av. Senador Salgado Filho, CEP 59078-900, Natal, RN, Brazil
Pedro Teófilo Silva de Moura
Affiliation:
Pós Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação, Universidade Federal Rural do Semiárido, Av. Francisco Mota, CEP 59625-900, Mossoró, RN, Brazil
Leonardo Fernandes França*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ciências Animais, Universidade Federal Rural do Semiárido, Av. Francisco Mota, CEP 59625-900, Mossoró, RN, Brazil
*
*Corresponding author. Email: franca_lf@ufersa.edu.br
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Abstract:

Seasonal fluctuations in bird abundance are expected in semi-arid environments, but estimates may be biased if detectability is not considered. In a tropical dry forest in north-eastern Brazil, we evaluated whether bird abundance is highly seasonal, and associated with time-specific variability in detectability. We mark-recaptured birds with mist nets over three field visits (3487 records from 75 species), and used closed-capture models to estimate detectability and abundance in birds divided into three groups (all, residents, insectivores). In the two dry periods, the best models resulted in capture estimates at least three times larger than recapture, and both estimates were twice that of when rains occurred on the day preceding sampling. Abundance varied between dry and wet periods from 4.0 (from 115 ± 34 to 479 ± 144) to 13 times (183 ± 8 to 2463 ± 351). Estimates were 1.5–3.2 times greater in the dry period when behavioural responses of birds were excluded from capture-recapture models. Meanwhile, in the wet period the relative abundance was between 33–76% smaller than best-fit models estimated. This study found variation in avian abundance greater than that observed in other Neotropical dry forests, and indicates that biases may be common when not including detectability.

Keywords

behavioural responsescapture-mark-recapture modelsclosed populationrainfallsemi-arid
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 33 , Issue 6 , November 2017 , pp. 365 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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