Predictive model for sustaining biodiversity in tropical countryside.

ABSTRACT: Growing demand for food, fuel, and fiber is driving the intensification and expansion of agricultural land through a corresponding displacement of native woodland, savanna, and shrubland. In the wake of this displacement, it is clear that farmland can support biodiversity through preservation of important ecosystem elements at a fine scale. However, how much biodiversity can be sustained and with what tradeoffs for production are open questions. Using a well-studied tropical ecosystem in Costa Rica, we develop an empirically based model for quantifying the "wildlife-friendliness" of farmland for native birds. Some 80% of the 166 mist-netted species depend on fine-scale countryside forest elements (≤ 60-m-wide clusters of trees, typically of variable length and width) that weave through far

SUBMITTER: Mendenhall CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3182680 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature