Vol. 61, 2022

(update: 2022.12.14)

Avian Assemblages in Forest Fragments do not Sum to the Expected Regional Community in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

*, James Joseph Roper

^2,§

³

⁴

⁵

⁶

¹Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, Santa Helena, PR, Brazil. *Correspondence: E-mail: vagnera@utfpr.edu.br (Cavarzere). Tel: (55 45) 3268-8812
²Ars Artium Consulting. Piraquara, PR, Brazil. E-mail: jjroper@gmail.com (Roper)
³Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science (LSUMNS). Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States. E-mail: marcoantoniorego@yahoo.com.br (Rego)
⁴Av. Pedro Paulo de Souza, 1750, apto. 1305-G, Setor Goiânia 02. Goiânia, GO, Brazil. E-mail: alcardel@gmail.com (de Luca)
⁵Instituto de Recursos Naturais, Universidade Federal de Itajubá, Itajubá, MG, Brazil. E-mail: tvvcosta@unifei.edu.br (Costa)
⁶Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo (MZUSP). São Paulo, SP, Brazil. E mail: lfs@usp.br (Silveira)

^§VC and JJR contributed equally to this work.
Received 5 March 2022 / Accepted 8 September 2022
Communicated by Teng-Chiu Lin

While bird diversity in the Atlantic Forest can be considered well-known, how the communities have been affected by deforestation and habitat fragmentation is not. We studied birds in 10 forest fragments of distinct sizes (all originally within the Atlantic Forest) in southern Bahia. In 5,391 bird encounters, we found 251 species, with 46 endemics and eight considered globally vulnerable or endangered. We also compiled a list of the 380 species that should comprise the expected regional assemblage, and found that only 66% of these species were present in all the fragments combined. Only 9% of all observed species were found in all fragments. The largest fragment (700 ha) had the greatest number of endemic species (40), and seven threatened species. All fragments had some conservation-important species (some were found in one or a few fragments), but no fragment included them all. Fragments shared 10% of endemic species, but overall, the contingent of endemics was unique in each fragment. Finally, most functional traits of bird assemblages decreased with increasing fragment size. Neither species richness nor similarity correlated with fragment size or distance between fragments, and unknown, non-random factors probably influence the likelihood of species survival in each fragment. Thus, to ensure the persistence of threatened species, as well as maintain the most common species, conservation management decisions should include all fragments together because no single fragment is most representative of the local community.

Key words: Habitat modification, Fragment variability, Landscape ecology, Species richness, Conservation.

Citation: Cavarzere V, Roper JJ, Rego MA, de Luca A, Costa TVV, Silveira LF. 2022. Avian assemblages in forest fragments do not sum to the expected regional community in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Zool Stud 61:74. doi:10.6620/ZS.2022.61-74.

Supplementary materials: Fig. S1丨Table S1丨Table S2