Land-use change promotes avian diversity at the expense of species with unique traits.

ABSTRACT: Land-use change may alter both species diversity and species functional diversity patterns. To test the idea that species diversity and functional diversity changes respond in differing ways to land-use changes, we characterize the form of the change in bird assemblages and species functional traits along an intensifying gradient of land use in the savanna biome in a historically homogeneous vegetation type in Phalaborwa, South Africa. A section of this vegetation type has been untransformed, and the remainder is now mainly characterized by urban and subsistence agricultural areas. Using morphometric, foraging and breeding functional traits of birds, we estimate functional diversity changes. Bird species richness and abundance are generally higher in urban and subsistence agricultural land

SUBMITTER: Coetzee BWT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6093147 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature