What can tree plantations do for forest birds in fragmented forest landscapes? A case study in southern Brazil

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2010.07.006

Forest Ecology and Management

Volume 260, Issue 7, 31 August 2010, Pages 1156-1163

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2010.07.006 Get rights and content

Abstract

Despite the fact that tree plantations are not able to completely replace the ecological function of natural forests, the present study proposes to evaluate for which bird species or avian groups tree plantations act as habitat in fragmented landscape in southern Brazil. We compared the richness and abundance of bird species in a natural forest to adjacent plantations of Araucaria, a native tree species and of pine, an exotic plant in South America. Moreover, we evaluated the impact of tree plantations on richness of avian groups with different levels of dependence on forest habitat, feeding habits and foraging strata as well as on threatened species. The fixed 100 m radius point-counts method was used. A total of 114 bird species were recorded in all areas. Of those, 93 occurred in natural forest, 87 in Araucaria plantations and 81 in pine plantations. These results indicate that richness and abundance were lower in the pine plantations than in the natural forest and in the Araucaria plantations. Araucaria plantations can be used by a high number of bird species and their richness was not significantly lower than that observed in the adjacent natural forest. Our results suggest that Araucaria plantations could act as habitat for a large number of bird species, especially for forest-dependents species, insectivores, frugivores and species at different threat categories.

Introduction

Natural Brazilian forests were considered a bountiful source of wood in the past. Beginning in the 1970s, the industry proliferated. Fragmented landscapes replaced the continuous forest. A particular type of subtropical rain forest, the Araucaria forest, was under high pressure. During that time Araucaria angustifolia (Bert.) O. Kuntze, a conifer with valuable wood that dominates this kind of forest, was the target of uncontrolled exploitation in southern Brazil (Guerra et al., 2002). Nowadays, only 12.6% of Araucaria forest remains intact (Ribeiro et al., 2009) and there are serious concerns regarding the intense deforestation of natural forest as well as increasing demand for timber and energy (Bracelpa, 2007).

Considering this, the Brazilian government created financial supports for the pulpwood industries between 1960 and 1980, resulting in an expansion of tree plantations in the country. In the beginning of 1969, commercial tree plantations occupied approximately 200,000 ha. At present, plantations occupy 5,700,000 ha (0.67% of Brazilian territory). The plantations occur mainly in the southern region, where 1,820,000 ha are planted with the exotic genus Pinus (SBS, 2007).

In tropical regions, it is estimated that 70% of the vertebrates depend on undisturbed natural forests (Erwin, 1988). In Brazilian Atlantic forest, 63% of bird species are considered rare due to their intimate relation to forest habitat, low population and narrow distribution (Goerk, 1997). Studies show that the conversion of natural forests to homogeneous tree plantations has a negative effect on the bird species that depend on the natural forest habitat, while bird species that are generalists are less severely affected (e.g., Lindenmayer et al., 2003, Petit and Petit, 2003, Zurita et al., 2006, Paritsis and Aizen, 2008, Farwing et al., 2008, Deconchat et al., 2009). Moreover, birds that specialize in feeding on a restricted set of resources (food items and foraging strata) have a reduced potential to occupy tree plantations (Wunderle, 1997, Faria et al., 2006).

The present study compared the richness and abundance of bird species in a natural forest (Araucaria forest) to two types of adjacent tree plantations: one with A. angustifolia (a native tree) and another with Pinus elliottii (an exotic tree). We evaluated the impact of the tree plantations on species richness of avian groups that differed in the following: (1) levels of dependence of the forest habitat (i.e., forest-dependent or forest-generalist), (2) feeding habits and (3) foraging strata. We also quantified the number of species and abundance of the different species of conservation concern for each forest type.

Although tree plantations are not able to completely replace the ecological functions of natural forests (structural, morphological and functional aspects) they support many bird species in fragmented landscapes (Harrington, 1999, Matlock et al., 2002, Hartley, 2002, Willis, 2003, Lindenmayer and Hobbs, 2004, Carnus et al., 2006, Barlow et al., 2007, Luck and Korodaj, 2008, Deconchat et al., 2009, Lindenmayer et al., 2010). We therefore evaluate for which bird species or groups of species the tree plantations act as habitat in fragment landscape in southern Brazil, despite the low expectation of bird richness in tree plantations themselves (Lindenmayer and Hobbs, 2004, Zurita et al., 2006, Loyn et al., 2007, Farwing et al., 2008).

Section snippets

Study area

The study was conducted in Irati National Forest, southern Brazil (25°21′S, 50°35′W; Fig. 1). The Irati National Forest covers an area of 3495 ha and it is classified as a Conservation Unit of Sustainable Use. Approximately 36% of the area is covered by natural Araucaria Forest, a native formation characterized by the predominance of A. angustifolia with a rich understory (Galvão et al., 1989). The remaining area is occupied by tree plantations of Pinus spp. (21.6%) and of A. angustifolia (17%)

Results

A total of 114 bird species was recorded in the study areas: 93 in NF, 87 in AP and 81 in PP. Richness estimated by rarefaction method showed that differences between NF and PP were significant at the 95% confidence interval, when the same number of contacts is considered (839 in AP): 83–91 bird species in NF and 79–81 in PP. The rarefaction curve (Fig. 3) achieved an asymptote, indicating that the sampling effort was enough for a proper recording of the bird species in each forest type. The

Discussion

Our results indicate an unexpected similarity in bird richness between natural forest and Araucaria plantations, once we expected to find higher bird richness in natural forest. This indicates that Araucaria plantation can be used by a large number of bird species when compared to pine plantations. The results obtained in the Araucaria plantations seem similar to those in unmanaged understory, as already observed by Willis (2003) in Eucalyptus plantations. Managed and sparse understory is the

Acknowledgments

We thank the Biological Sciences-Zoology Post-Graduation Program from Federal University of Paraná. Financial support for this study was obtained from the CNPq (Brazilian Council for Development of Science and Technology) through the Mata Atlantica Program. We also thank the Biological Sciences Post-Graduation Program from State University of Londrina for financial support during the field work. We thank the IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) for

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