title: Does mixed-species flocking influence how birds respond to a gradient of land-use intensity?
abstract: Conservation biology is increasingly concerned with preserving interactions among species such as mutualisms in landscapes facing anthropogenic change. We investigated how one kind of mutualism, mixed-species bird flocks, influences the way in which birds respond to different habitat types of varying land-use intensity. We use data from a well-replicated, large-scale study in Sri Lanka and the Western Ghats of India, in which flocks were observed inside forest reserves, in 'buffer zones' of degraded forest or timber plantations, and in areas of intensive agriculture. We find flocks affected the responses of birds in three ways: (i) species with high propensity to flock were more sensitive to land use; (ii) different flock types, dominated by different flock leaders, varied in their sensitivity to land use and because following species have distinct preferences for leaders, this can have a cascading effect on followers' habitat selection; and (iii) those forest-interior species that remain outside of forests were found more inside flocks than would be expected by chance, as they may use flocks more in suboptimal habitat. We conclude that designing policies to protect flocks and their leading species may be an effective way to conserve multiple bird species in mixed forest and agricultural landscapes.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, People's Republic of 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, People's Republic of 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, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Uromi Manage
authors.initials: UM
authors.lastname: 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 570 002, Karnataka, 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, People's Republic of China eben.goodale@outlook.com.
authors.forename: Eben
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3403-2847
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Goodale
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D001717:Birds / Q000502:physiology*; D017753:Ecosystem; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D065928:Forests; D007194:India; D013188:Sri Lanka; D014329:Tropical Climate
keywords: anthropogenic disturbance; biodiversity loss; human-modified ecosystems; mixed-species bird flocks; mutualisms; species interaction networks