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Avian diversity in a Kenyan agroecosystem: effects of habitat structure and proximity to forest

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Abstract

Tropical agroecosystems cover an increasingly large proportion of the Earth’s terrestrial surface. Yet, relatively little is known about the factors that influence their avifauna, especially in areas of high human population density. The potential of tropical farmland for sustaining bird biodiversity, including forest birds, can be influenced by habitat structure and the distance from the nearest forest. We investigated the effect of these two factors on the bird community in the farmland near Kakamega Forest, Kenya. Using point counts, we assessed the number of bird species and individuals on 56 study plots in distances up to about 2,100 m from the forest. We observed a total of 96 bird species in the farmland, 22 of which were forest, 58 shrub-land, and 16 open-country species. High vertical vegetation heterogeneity and a large number of woody plant individuals were related to high species richness of forest and shrub-land birds, whereas open-country birds avoided such areas. The species richness and total number of forest birds declined with increasing distance to the forest. A comparison with the bird community within Kakamega Forest indicated that only a fraction of the forest species could be sustained in the farmland. This suggests that agroecosystems with a diverse habitat structure can support a high diversity of birds, but have only a limited capacity to compensate for forest loss.

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Acknowledgments

We thank B. Bleher for support during study preparation and field work, N. Sajita for assistance with field work and G. Schaab for providing distances of plots to forest. N. Farwig kindly provided access to bird survey data. We thank D. Berens for useful input. The people living around Kakamega Forest have our sincere gratitude for their exceptional hospitality and for generously allowing unrestricted access to their land. We thank the Bernd Woick GmbH for sponsoring field equipment. Financial support was provided by the BMBF (Biota East Africa 01LC0025). The field work complied with the current laws of Kenya.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Zoologie, Abt. V, Ökologie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Becherweg 13, 55099, Mainz, Germany

    Irina Laube, Nils Breitbach & Katrin Böhning-Gaese

  2. Department of Ornithology, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

    Katrin Böhning-Gaese

Authors
  1. Irina Laube
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  2. Nils Breitbach
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  3. Katrin Böhning-Gaese
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Correspondence to Irina Laube.

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Communicated by C. Rahbek.

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Table S1

Bird species observed on the 56 study plots, sorted according to total observations and mean number of observations per plot and census. Nomenclature and habitat preferences (F=forest species, S=shrub-land species, O=open country species) after Zimmerman et al. (1999).

Table S2

Habitat variables retained for the different bird groups after the first model selection process. # woody plants: number of woody plant individuals; habitat diversity: Shannon-Wiener index of habitat types; hedges: length of hedge rows; horizontal VH: horizontal vegetation heterogeneity; vertical VH: vertical vegetation heterogeneity. All variables except # woody plant species and vertical vegetation heterogeneity were log (x + 1) transformed.

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Laube, I., Breitbach, N. & Böhning-Gaese, K. Avian diversity in a Kenyan agroecosystem: effects of habitat structure and proximity to forest. J Ornithol 149, 181–191 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-007-0258-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-007-0258-6

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