LTREB: Long-term Community Responses to Landscape Dynamics by Birds in Amazonian Rainforest Fragments

Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge LA

Investigators

Abstract

Beginning in 1979, rainforest cutting produced a series of forest fragments near Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon. Research in the fragments, which began while they were still connected to forest, has produced important insights into the consequences of rainforest loss in the tropics. Many bird species went extinct in fragments, resulting in much different communities in fragments compared to undisturbed forest. As expected, effects were most pronounced in the smallest fragments, 1-10 ha, but species were also lost from the larger 100 ha fragments. It was also found that the bird communities in the fragments changed over time in response to the regrowth or clearing of vegetation in the deforested areas surrounding them. Most results so far have come from a standardized program of sampling by catching (then releasing) birds near ground level. Over the next five years, this sampling will be continued, but additional techniques will be added to describe the entire bird community in fragments and control sites. How birds use forest regrowth surrounding fragments will also be examined. This research will contribute to an understanding of how 30 years of landscape change affects the world's most diverse bird community, and will provide information on how management of regrowth and forest patches can benefit birds.