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Lookup NU author(s): Sheena Davis, Dr Sergio Guerreiro MilheirasORCiD, Lauren Barnes, Professor Marion PfeiferORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Land use change for crop production is one of the key drivers of habitat loss and fragmentation and consequently biodiversity loss and change in tropical regions. This may impact biodiversity regulated ecosystem services; birds are important to crop health regulating services (seed dispersal, pest control) and disservices (seed predation, grain herbivory). However, knowledge is limited on how birds use heterogeneous agricultural landscapes and the consequences for spatial distribution and flow of services and disservices. We studied crop and non-crop habitat associations of birds in forest-agricultural landscapes of the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. We focussed on dietary preference as a key trait impacting bird responses to land use change, services, and disservices to crops. We surveyed birds across four main habitat types using repeated point counts, recording a total of 148 species. We found that crop habitats supported higher species richness and larger communities of potentially beneficial species to crop health, whereby 34.5% of invertebrate feeding species were recorded in cropland. We found that habitat heterogeneity within the landscape supports bird functional diversity and that each habitat type supported unique communities of species, furthermore, the number of species unique to forest habitats increased with increasing forest canopy closure. Our findings suggest management strategies of maintaining trees, shrubs and enhancing tree cover within the crop production landscape, can be effective approaches for maintaining bird diversity and services. However, in depth studies on trade-offs with disservices need further exploration to mitigate negative impacts of birds on crop yields.
Author(s): Davis S, Guerreiro Milheiras S, Olivier PL, Barnes L, Shirima D, Kioko E, Sallu SM, Ishengoma E, Marshall AR, Pfeifer M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Bird Conservation International
Year: 2024
Volume: 34
Pages: 1-10
Online publication date: 25/04/2024
Acceptance date: 12/03/2024
Date deposited: 13/03/2024
ISSN (print): 0959-2709
ISSN (electronic): 1474-0001
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270924000030
DOI: 10.1017/S0959270924000030
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/8vzq-e241
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