title: The effect of land-use on the diversity and mass-abundance relationships of understory avian insectivores in Sri Lanka and southern India.
abstract: Understory avian insectivores are especially sensitive to deforestation, although regional differences in how these species respond to human disturbance may be linked to varying land-use histories. South Asia experienced widespread conversion of forest to agriculture in the nineteenth century, providing a comparison to tropical areas deforested more recently. In Sri Lanka and the Western Ghats of India, we compared understory insectivores to other guilds, and to insectivores with different vertical strata preferences, both inside mixed-species flocks and for the whole bird community. Overall species richness did not change across the land-use gradient, although there was substantial turnover in species composition between land-use types. We found that the proportion of species represented by insectivores was ~1.14 times higher in forest compared to agriculture, and the proportion of insectivores represented by understory species was ~1.32 times higher in forests. Mass-abundance relationships were very different when analyzed on mixed-species flocks compared to the total community, perhaps indicating reduced competition in these mutualisms. We show that South Asia fits the worldwide pattern of understory insectivores declining with increased land-use intensity, and conclude that these species can be used globally as indicator and/or umbrella species for conservation across different disturbance time scales.
authors.affiliation: 1] Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303 CHINA [2] University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, CHINA.
authors.forename: Rachakonda
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sreekar
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Biological Sciences, GKVK Campus, Bellary Road, Bangalore, Karnataka 560065 INDIA.
authors.forename: Umesh
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303 CHINA.
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mammides
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303 CHINA.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303 CHINA.
authors.forename: Uromi
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Manage Goodale
authors.affiliation: Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka, Department of Zoology, University of Colombo, Colombo 3, SRI LANKA.
authors.forename: Sarath Wimalabandara
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Kotagama
authors.affiliation: Nature Conservation Foundation, 3076/5, 4th Cross, Gokulam Park, Mysore, Karnataka 570 002 INDIA.
authors.forename: Swati
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sidhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303 CHINA.
authors.forename: Eben
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Goodale
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D001717:Birds / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D017753:Ecosystem; D065928:Forests; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007313:Insecta / Q000502:physiology*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011156:Population Density; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011235:Predatory Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D013045:Species Specificity; D013188:Sri Lanka; D014197:Trees / Q000502:physiology*