Effect of forest shape on habitat selection of birds in a plantation-dominant landscape across seasons: comparison between continuous and strip forests

Shoji Naoe*, Shoko Sakai, Takashi Masaki

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    11 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Conversion of natural forests to other land use results not only in a decrease of forest area but also in the degradation of remnant forests as a habitat for forest animals. Although such degradation due to an increase of forest edges has been studied most intensively, other factors such as forest shape may also contribute to the degradation. In this study, we compared bird abundance and species richness between irregular-shaped and relatively continuous forests in the breeding and migratory seasons. Since the forests were surrounded by tree plantations rather than open lands, the edge effect may have been weak at the study site. Our results suggested that the irregular forest shape negatively affected forest bird abundance and species richness in the breeding season, but not in the migratory season. The response of birds varied with bird traits: migrants avoided the irregular-shaped forest, but residents did not. Among the residents, small ones preferred or tolerate the irregular-shaped forest whereas large ones avoided it. This study indicates that careful consideration of various factors such as seasonality and bird traits is needed to understand the consequences of land use changes on forest birds.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)219-223
    Number of pages5
    JournalJournal of Forest Research
    Volume17
    Issue number2
    Early online date27 Sept 2011
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2012

    User-Defined Keywords

    • Forest bird
    • Forest shape
    • Migration habit
    • Plantation-dominant landscape
    • Seasonality

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