How to make forest fragments more hospitable to wildlife

About | Contact | Mongabay on Facebook | Mongabay on Twitter | Free newsletter

SHARE:

How to make forest fragments more hospitable to wildlife
mongabay.com
January 27, 2009

While deforestation garners more attention from environmentalists, fragmentation of forest habitats is of significant concern to ecologists. As forest is fragmented into islands by logging, roads, agriculture, and other disturbances, edge effects alter the structure, microclimate and species composition of the forest patches, usually reducing the overall number of species. Forest specialists are most likely to suffer, losing out to "weedier" generalists and species that can tolerate forest "edge" conditions.

A new study, conducted in the Brazilian Amazon, takes a detailed look at the types of birds that are likely to persist, and even thrive, in forest fragments. Collecting field data on the behavior of forest-dependent bird species, Alexander Lees and Carlos Peres of the University of East Anglia found that species persistence in isolated fragments was strongly linked to their ability to cross gaps consisting of non-forest habitat. The most capable gap-crossers were medium to large-bodied bird species that feed on seeds, fruit, and insects.

A fragment of forest surrounded by cleared areas in the Amazon near Manaus. Image courtesy of Google Earth.

Gap-crossing is strongly influenced by the degree of isolation, a combination of gap width and the vegetation or "matrix" surrounding a forest fragment. The less isolated a patch, the more likely it is to be visited, and perhaps colonized, by bird species.

Armed with this information, Lees and Peres suggest that wide gaps between fragments can be made more hospitable to bird movement by maintaining, establishing, or restoring riparian forest buffers, "stepping-stone" structures like clusters of trees and "living fences". Such efforts may also facilitate movement by other forest creatures, including mammals and insects.

"Reducing the number and width of forest dividing gaps; maintaining and/or creating forest corridors and increasing matrix permeability through the creation and maintenance of 'stepping-stone' structures will maximize the species retention in fragmented tropical forest landscapes," they write.

CITATION:
mongabay.com (January 27, 2009). How to make forest fragments more hospitable to wildlife. http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0127-forest_fragments.html

Tags:
biodiversity amazon Amazon biodiversity Fragmentation forests rainforests brazil latin america south america deforestation wildlife birds animals environment green

print

Environmental news index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home

Advertisements:

Mongabay Store
Wildlife of Madagascar T-shirt		Bold and Dangerous - Pygmy tyrant
Love me before I'm gone - Gladiator frog		Licking this frog may make you crazy

DON'T LIKE ADS? Become a mongabay supporter

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

RECENT FEATURES

		As Amazon deforestation falls, food production rises
		Biggest environmental news stories of 2011
		The year in review for rainforests
		Our top nature pictures of 2011

Photos

Brazil	China	Colombia
Costa Rica	Deforestation	Gabon
India	Indonesia	Kenya
Madagascar	Peru	Rainforest

ABOUT
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)

Help support mongabay.com when you buy from Amazon.com

CALENDARS

BOOKS BY MONGABAY AUTHORS

Conservation in an age of mass extinction

FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS / PRINTS

Copyright mongabay 2010

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated from mongabay.com operations (server, data transfer, travel) are mitigated through an association with Anthrotect,
an organization working with Afro-indigenous and Embera communities to protect forests in Colombia's Darien region.
Anthrotect is protecting the habitat of mongabay's mascot: the scale-crested pygmy tyrant.