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Hua F, Wang W, Nakagawa S, Liu S, Miao X, Yu L, Du Z, Abrahamczyk S, Arias-Sosa LA, Buda K, Budka M, Carrière SM, Chandler RB, Chiatante G, Chiawo DO, Cresswell W, Echeverri A, Goodale E, Huang G, Hulme MF, Hutto RL, Imboma TS, Jarrett C, Jiang Z, Kati VI, King DI, Kmecl P, Li N, Lövei GL, Macchi L, MacGregor-Fors I, Martin EA, Mira A, Morelli F, Ortega-Álvarez R, Quan RC, Salgueiro PA, Santos SM, Shahabuddin G, Socolar JB, Soh MCK, Sreekar R, Srinivasan U, Wilcove DS, Yamaura Y, Zhou L, Elsen PR. Ecological filtering shapes the impacts of agricultural deforestation on biodiversity. Nat Ecol Evol 2024; 8:251-266. [PMID: 38182682 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02280-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2023] [Accepted: 11/14/2023] [Indexed: 01/07/2024]
Abstract
The biodiversity impacts of agricultural deforestation vary widely across regions. Previous efforts to explain this variation have focused exclusively on the landscape features and management regimes of agricultural systems, neglecting the potentially critical role of ecological filtering in shaping deforestation tolerance of extant species assemblages at large geographical scales via selection for functional traits. Here we provide a large-scale test of this role using a global database of species abundance ratios between matched agricultural and native forest sites that comprises 71 avian assemblages reported in 44 primary studies, and a companion database of 10 functional traits for all 2,647 species involved. Using meta-analytic, phylogenetic and multivariate methods, we show that beyond agricultural features, filtering by the extent of natural environmental variability and the severity of historical anthropogenic deforestation shapes the varying deforestation impacts across species assemblages. For assemblages under greater environmental variability-proxied by drier and more seasonal climates under a greater disturbance regime-and longer deforestation histories, filtering has attenuated the negative impacts of current deforestation by selecting for functional traits linked to stronger deforestation tolerance. Our study provides a previously largely missing piece of knowledge in understanding and managing the biodiversity consequences of deforestation by agricultural deforestation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fangyuan Hua
- Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
| | - Weiyi Wang
- Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
- School of Natural Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
| | - Shinichi Nakagawa
- Evolution and Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Shuangqi Liu
- Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Xinran Miao
- Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
| | - Le Yu
- Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- Ministry of Education Ecological Field Station for East Asia Migratory Birds, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- Tsinghua University (Department of Earth System Science)-Xi'an Institute of Surveying and Mapping Joint Research Center for Next-Generation Smart Mapping, Beijing, China
| | - Zhenrong Du
- Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Stefan Abrahamczyk
- Department of Botany, State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Luis Alejandro Arias-Sosa
- Laboratorio de Ecología de Organismos (GEO-UPTC), Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Colombia
| | - Kinga Buda
- Department of Behavioural Ecology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
| | - Michał Budka
- Department of Behavioural Ecology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
| | - Stéphanie M Carrière
- Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, UMR SENS, IRD, CIRAD, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
| | - Richard B Chandler
- Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
| | | | - David O Chiawo
- Centre for Biodiversity Information Development, Strathmore University, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Will Cresswell
- Centre of Biological Diversity, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland
| | - Alejandra Echeverri
- Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Eben Goodale
- Department of Health and Environmental Science, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China
| | - Guohualing Huang
- School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
| | - Mark F Hulme
- Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
- British Trust for Ornithology, Norfolk, UK
| | - Richard L Hutto
- Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA
| | - Titus S Imboma
- Ornithology Section, Zoology Department, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Crinan Jarrett
- Department of Bird Migration, Swiss Ornithological Institute, Sempach, Switzerland
| | - Zhigang Jiang
- Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- College of Life Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Vassiliki I Kati
- Department of Biological Applications and Technology, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
| | - David I King
- Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Amherst, MA, USA
| | - Primož Kmecl
- Group for Conservation Biology, DOPPS BirdLife Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia
| | - Na Li
- Institute of Eastern-Himalaya Biodiversity Research, Dali University, Dali, China
| | - Gábor L Lövei
- Institute of Applied Ecology, Fujian University of Agriculture and Forestry, Fuzhou, China
- HUN-REN-DE Anthropocene Ecology Research Group, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
| | - Leandro Macchi
- Instituto de Ecología Regional (IER), CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Tucumán, Argentina
| | - Ian MacGregor-Fors
- Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Lahti, Finland
| | - Emily A Martin
- Institute of Animal Ecology and Systematic Zoology, Justus Liebig University of Gießen, Giessen, Germany
| | - António Mira
- MED (Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development), CHANGE (Global Change and Sustainability Institute) and UBC (Conservation Biology Lab), Department of Biology, School of Sciences and Technology, University of Évora, Évora, Portugal
| | - Federico Morelli
- Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
- Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Bournemouth University, Poole, UK
| | - Rubén Ortega-Álvarez
- Investigadoras e Investigadores por México del Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), Dirección Regional Occidente, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Rui-Chang Quan
- Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, China
| | - Pedro A Salgueiro
- MED (Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development), CHANGE (Global Change and Sustainability Institute), Institute for Advanced Studies and Research and UBC (Conservation Biology Lab), University of Évora, Évora, Portugal
| | - Sara M Santos
- MED (Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development), CHANGE (Global Change and Sustainability Institute), Institute for Advanced Studies and Research and UBC (Conservation Biology Lab), University of Évora, Évora, Portugal
| | | | | | | | - Rachakonda Sreekar
- Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Umesh Srinivasan
- Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
| | - David S Wilcove
- School of Public and International Affairs and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Yuichi Yamaura
- Shikoku Research Center, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Kochi, Japan
| | - Liping Zhou
- Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
| | - Paul R Elsen
- Global Conservation Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY, USA
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Mugatha SM, Ogutu JO, Piepho HP, Maitima JM. Bird species richness and diversity responses to land use change in the Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya. Sci Rep 2024; 14:1711. [PMID: 38243068 PMCID: PMC10798997 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-52107-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2023] [Accepted: 01/13/2024] [Indexed: 01/21/2024] Open
Abstract
The increasing demand for cultivated lands driven by human population growth, escalating consumption and activities, combined with the vast area of uncultivated land, highlight the pressing need to better understand the biodiversity conservation implications of land use change in Sub-Saharan Africa. Land use change alters natural wildlife habitats with fundamental consequences for biodiversity. Consequently, species richness and diversity typically decline as land use changes from natural to disturbed. We assess how richness and diversity of avian species, grouped into feeding guilds, responded to land use changes, primarily expansion of settlements and cultivation at three sites in the Lake Victoria Basin in western Kenya, following tsetse control interventions. Each site consisted of a matched pair of spatially adjacent natural/semi-natural and settled/cultivated landscapes. Significant changes occurred in bird species richness and diversity in the disturbed relative to the natural landscape. Disturbed areas had fewer guilds and all guilds in disturbed areas also occurred in natural areas. Guilds had significantly more species in natural than in disturbed areas. The insectivore/granivore and insectivore/wax feeder guilds occurred only in natural areas. Whilst species diversity was far lower, a few species of estrildid finches were more common in the disturbed landscapes and were often observed on the scrubby edges of modified habitats. In contrast, the natural and less disturbed wooded areas had relatively fewer estrildid species and were completely devoid of several other species. In aggregate, land use changes significantly reduced bird species richness and diversity on the disturbed landscapes regardless of their breeding range size or foraging style (migratory or non-migratory) and posed greater risks to non-migratory species. Accordingly, land use planning should integrate conservation principles that preserve salient habitat qualities required by different bird species, such as adequate patch size and habitat connectivity, conserve viable bird populations and restore degraded habitats to alleviate adverse impacts of land use change on avian species richness and diversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simon M Mugatha
- International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), P.O. Box 30709, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya
| | - Joseph O Ogutu
- International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), P.O. Box 30709, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya.
- Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Crop Science, University of Hohenheim, Fruwirthstrasse 23, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany.
| | - Hans-Peter Piepho
- Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Crop Science, University of Hohenheim, Fruwirthstrasse 23, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Joseph M Maitima
- International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), P.O. Box 30709, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya
- Ecodym Africa, P.O. Box 50901, Nairobi, 00200, Kenya
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Kumar S, Sohil A, Kichloo MA, Sharma N. Landscape heterogeneity affects diurnal raptor communities in a sub-tropical region of northwestern Himalayas, India. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0246555. [PMID: 35482717 PMCID: PMC9049523 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246555] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2021] [Accepted: 01/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Raptors are highly sensitive to environmental and human-induced changes. In addition, several species of raptors exist in considerably small numbers. It is thus critical to conserve raptors and their habitats across relatively larger landscapes. We examined the diurnal raptor assemblages and seasonality in a subtropical habitat in India’s northwestern Himalayas. Quantitative data on diurnal birds of prey and their habitat features across six distinct habitat types were collected from 33 sample sites. We observed 3,434 individuals of 28 diurnal raptors belonging to two orders and three families during a two-year survey from December 2016 to November 2018. A significant variation in bird species richness and abundance was found across habitats and seasons, with farmlands and winters being the most diverse and speciose. The generalized linear model, used to determine raptor community responses, indicated that elevation and proximity to dumping sites significantly affected the raptor abundance. The non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) revealed significant differences in raptor assemblages across the habitat types. The study concluded that raptors’ persistence is largely determined by their preference for favourable feeding, roosting, and nesting opportunities. The presence of protected and habitat-exclusive species validates the high conservation importance of these ecosystems, particularly the forest patches and farmlands, necessitating robust conservation and management measures in this part of northwestern Himalaya.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sudesh Kumar
- Department of Environmental Sciences, Govt. MAM College, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India
| | - Asha Sohil
- P.G. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Jammu, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India
| | - Muzaffar A. Kichloo
- Department of Environmental Sciences, Govt. Degree College, Banihal, Jammu and Kashmir, India
| | - Neeraj Sharma
- Institute of Mountain Environment, University of Jammu, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India
- * E-mail:
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Lukhele SM, Shapiro JT, Mahlaba TA, Sibiya MD, McCleery RA, Fletcher RJ, Monadjem A. Influence of sugarcane growth stages on bird diversity and community structure in an agricultural-savanna environment. Heliyon 2021; 7:e06563. [PMID: 33851055 PMCID: PMC8024607 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2020] [Revised: 12/26/2020] [Accepted: 03/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Agricultural intensification is a threat to terrestrial ecosystems around the world. Agricultural areas, especially monocultures, create homogenous landscapes for wildlife. However, certain crops, such as sugarcane, are harvested in phases, creating a mosaic of fields in different stages of growth. We investigated changes in avian communities across four different sugarcane growth stages: emerging, short, medium and tall sugarcane, as well as control sites that represented native savanna habitat in northeast Eswatini prior to conversion to agriculture. In total, we sampled nine sites in sugarcane fields (at different growth stages) and three in native savanna. We conducted bird counts at 5-week intervals along 200m line transects over both the breeding and non-breeding seasons. We recorded a total of 124 bird species belonging to 58 families. Bird species richness and diversity were higher in savannas compared to any stages of growth in sugarcane. In contrast, functional beta diversity and uniqueness were higher in sugarcane than in savanna. Community composition was also different between the two land-uses. While there was overlap in bird species composition between different sugarcane growth stages, there was high beta diversity and high turnover between sites, indicative of the high temporal and spatial variability in bird communities in sugarcane fields. We demonstrated that the spatial and temporal variability created by the different growth stages of sugarcane promotes the occurrence of species with different traits, which may contribute to ecosystem functioning and promote the conservation of bird species as sugarcane fields can provide resource complementation for species with different needs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sifiso M. Lukhele
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Eswatini, Private Bag 4, Kwaluseni, Eswatini
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cyprus, P O Box 20537, Nicosia, 1678, Cyprus
| | - Julie Teresa Shapiro
- CIRI, Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie, Université de Lyon, Inserm U1111, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS UMR5308, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 Allée d’Italie, Lyon, 69007, France
| | | | - Muzi D. Sibiya
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Eswatini, Private Bag 4, Kwaluseni, Eswatini
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-0430, USA
| | - Robert A. McCleery
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-0430, USA
| | - Robert J. Fletcher
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-0430, USA
| | - Ara Monadjem
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Eswatini, Private Bag 4, Kwaluseni, Eswatini
- Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag 20, Hatfield, 0028, Pretoria, South Africa
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