Abstract
Woodpeckers (family Picidae) are a specialised group of insectivores that are sensitive to forest degradation and fragmentation. We evaluated the woodpecker taxa as potential indicators of habitat quality and forest bird diversity in temperate moist hardwood forests (1500–2400 m asl), a threatened biome in the Western Himalaya. 74 forest sites, selected to represent a gradient of anthropogenic use, were surveyed for birds, vegetation structure and proportion of land under dense forest in the surrounding landscape. Individual woodpecker species were observed to quantify their foraging niche preferences. We found that forest sites with higher woodpecker richness were also rich in all other bird species. Further, the richness and abundance of woodpeckers and all other birds were affected by similar habitat variables. Four out of the eight woodpecker species occurring in the study area were found to fit our habitat models suitably, with canopy cover, tree density, and forest proportion proving to be important variables. Behavioural observations showed that the same four woodpecker species significantly preferred larger and taller trees for foraging. Given the difficulty of directly monitoring forest characteristics and total bird diversity over large landscapes, consistent monitoring of sensitive woodpecker species can provide answers to both. Further, as woodpeckers are moderately common and conspicuous birds, areas with high woodpecker diversity can be easily identified and prioritised for conservation.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Code availability
The code generated during the current study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Uttarakhand State Forest Department for research permits. Our field assistants Ritobroto Chanda, Kamlesh Bisht, Mahendra Raikwal and Narendra Raikwal made field surveys possible. We also acknowledge support of Rajkamal Goswami, Meghna Krishnadas and Hari Sridhar for assistance in statistical analysis, Ashwin Vishwanathan for key comments on the manuscripts, Ravi S. Bhalla for guidance in land-use classification and Ishika Ramakrishna for help with proof-reading the manuscript.
Funding
TM was funded by grants from the Tata Trusts and core funding to NCBS-TIFR from the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). GS was supported by the Women’s Scientist Scheme –A (Department of Science and Technology, Government of India).
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Menon, T., Shahabuddin, G. Assessing woodpeckers as indicators of bird diversity and habitat structure in managed forests. Biodivers Conserv 30, 1689–1704 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02164-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02164-0