Depauperate avifauna in plantations compared to forests and exurban areas.

ABSTRACT: Native forests are shrinking worldwide, causing a loss of biological diversity. Our ability to prioritize forest conservation actions is hampered by a lack of information about the relative impacts of different types of forest loss on biodiversity. In particular, we lack rigorous comparisons of the effects of clearing forests for tree plantations and for human settlements, two leading causes of deforestation worldwide. We compared avian diversity in forests, plantations and exurban areas on the Cumberland Plateau, USA, an area of global importance for biodiversity. By combining field surveys with digital habitat databases, and then analyzing diversity at multiple scales, we found that plantations had lower diversity and fewer conservation priority species than did other habitats. Exurban a

SUBMITTER: Haskell DG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1762314 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature