Horizontal and vertical species turnover in tropical birds in habitats with differing land use
Date
2017
Authors
Rachakonda, S.
Corlett, R.
Dayananda, S.
Goodale, U.
Kilpatrick, A.
Kotagama, S.
Koh, L.
Goodale, E.
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Journal article
Citation
Biology Letters, 2017; 13(5):1-5
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Rachakonda Sreekar, Richard T. Corlett, Salindra Dayananda, Uromi Manage Goodale, Adam Kilpatrick, Sarath W. Kotagama, Lian Pin Koh, Eben Goodale
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Abstract
Large tracts of tropical rainforests are being converted into intensive agricultural lands. Such anthropogenic disturbances are known to reduce species turnover across horizontal distances. But it is not known if they can also reduce species turnover across vertical distances (elevation), which have steeper climatic differences. We measured turnover in birds across horizontal and vertical sampling transects in three land-use types of Sri Lanka: protected forest, reserve buffer and intensive-agriculture, from 90 to 2100 m a.s.l. Bird turnover rates across horizontal distances were similar across all habitats, and much less than vertical turnover rates. Vertical turnover rates were not similar across habitats. Forest had higher turnover rates than the other two habitats for all bird species. Buffer and intensive-agriculture had similar turnover rates, even though buffer habitats were situated at the forest edge. Therefore, our results demonstrate the crucial importance of conserving primary forest across the full elevational range available.
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© 2017 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.