Matrix Intensification Affects Body and Physiological Condition of Tropical Forest-Dependent Passerines.

ABSTRACT: Matrix land-use intensification is a relatively recent and novel landscape change that can have important influences on the biota within adjacent habitat patches. While there are immediate local changes that it brings about, the influences on individual animals occupying adjacent habitats may be less evident initially. High-intensity land use could induce chronic stress in individuals in nearby remnants, leading ultimately to population declines. We investigated how physiological indicators and body condition measures of tropical forest-dependent birds differ between forest adjacent to surface mining sites and that near farmlands at two distances from remnant edge in southwest Ghana. We used mixed effects models of several condition indices including residual body mass and heterophil to ly

SUBMITTER: Deikumah JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4479600 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature