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Multiple facets of avian diversity in pine forests along an urban-agricultural gradient

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Abstract

Increasing land conversion of agriculture and forest by urban growth in the southern United States has altered the landscape matrix surrounding pine forests, creating varying mixtures of urban and agricultural cover types. I investigated the avian diversity-environment relationship in the southern pine forests along an urban-agriculture-wildland gradient by quantifying multiple dimensions of biodiversity: taxonomic (Shannon-Wiener index), functional (RaoQ and its standardized effect size), and phylogenetic (mean pairwise distance, mean nearest taxon distance, and their standardized effect size) diversity. I also considered habitat guilds and single traits correlated with RaoQ. I used breeding bird data collected at 162 pine stands in Georgia. Taxonomic and functional diversity increased with agricultural cover within the landscape (1 km-radius area). In particular, shrub habitat guild and shrub nesters showed a strong positive response to the variable. Insectivores and tree nesters (two predominant traits in pine forests) responded negatively to urban and agricultural covers. Both taxonomic and functional diversity decreased and increased with increasing hardwood vegetation cover and herbaceous vegetation cover within a stand, respectively. Pine-grassland and shrub habitat guilds, omnivores, and shrub nesters also showed the similar responses to these variables. Phylogenetic diversity metrics were not associated with environmental variables. The findings of this study suggest that open habitat features within a stand are important to promote functional diversity as well as taxonomic diversity in pine forests. They also indicate that agricultural matrix does not act as an environmental filter and low to moderate levels of less intensive agricultural (hay/pasture) matrix may improve avian diversity.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by McIntire-Stennis Project GEOZ 136 and GDAS Special Project of Science and Technology Development 2020GDASYL-20200103089. I would like to thank Georgia Ornithological Society for additional research grant. I also thank all staff at the Fort Gordon Natural Resources Branch for their help, field technicians for their hard work, Dr. J. Carroll for advice on this project, and Dr. J. Rotenberry for comments and edits on the draft of this manuscript.

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  1. Guangdong Key Laboratory of Animal Conservation and Resource Utilization, Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization, Institute of Zoology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, No.105 Xingang West Road, 510260, Guangzhou, China

    Myung-Bok Lee

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Lee, MB. Multiple facets of avian diversity in pine forests along an urban-agricultural gradient. Biodivers Conserv 31, 497–516 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02345-x

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