Active restoration facilitates bird community recovery in an Afrotropical rainforest
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Date
2016
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Biological Conservation
Abstract
Active restoration of rainforests is essential in enhancing the recovery of biodiversity in many tropical regions
suffering from deforestation. However, the value of actively restored rainforests for birds is still relatively poorly
understood because of the short history of active restoration programs. Here, we studied the recovery of bird
communities in Kibale National Park, Uganda.Wesampled birds along a restoration gradient consisting of six restoration
areas (3–16 years old) and used five primary forests as reference areas. We found that bird community
compositions changed in an orderly fashion along the restoration gradient. The abundance of arboreal insectivore
frugivores and forest specialists increased, while that of foliage-gleaning insectivores, granivores and forest
visitors decreased towards older sites. The similarity of the bird communities of the restored forests to those of
the nearby primary forests increased linearly with time. If this recovery rate is extrapolated to the future, the
bird communities could reach a pre-disturbance state after only approximately 20 years of active restoration.
However, previous studies have shown that recovery is typically a non-linear process, and the time needed for
bird communities to recover is more likely longer than this. Nevertheless, our study provides evidence that
bird communities benefit from active rainforest restoration after human-induced deforestation.
Description
Keywords
Bird community recovery, Active restoration, Feeding guild, Kibale
Citation
Latja, P., Valtonen, A., Malinga, G. M., & Roininen, H. (2016). Active restoration facilitates bird community recovery in an Afrotropical rainforest. Biological Conservation, 200, 70-79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2016.05.035