Impacts of park roads and trails on a community of Atlantic Forest fruit-eating birds
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Tropical Ecology https://doi.org/10.1007/s42965-020-00097-3
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Impacts of park roads and trails on a community of Atlantic Forest fruit‑eating birds Bruna Gonçalves da Silva1,3 · Wesley Rodrigues Silva2 Received: 4 March 2020 / Revised: 12 July 2020 / Accepted: 22 July 2020 © International Society for Tropical Ecology 2020
Abstract Understanding how birds respond to road and trail disturbance is urgently needed to support conservation strategies. We aimed to assess the impacts of pathways of various widths and uses on a community of fruit-eating birds, considering that the effect of pathways should be modulated by the sensitivities of bird species. Bird data were collected over a year in four sites inside an Atlantic Forest tract in southeastern Brazil: three with different types of pathways—a main road (20 m wide, high usage), a secondary road (10 m wide—low usage), a touristic trail (2 m wide, high usage)—and a control area (no pathways). Eight sampling plots were established along with eight point-count locations at the edge of each pathway. The control area had the greatest bird diversity when more weight is assigned to equitability, followed by the area with the main road. The main road, however, had the lowest richness and abundance of large frugivores and the highest abundance of omnivores. Pathway width, usage and fruit availability were the most important components structuring the bird communities. This study revealed that the impacts of pathways in forests, particularly when paths are large and/or extensively used, might have negative consequences for local communities of fruit-eating birds. It is likely that the lower abundance of large frugivorous birds in forest tracts near pathways will affect local seed dispersal processes. Park managers should be aware and care about the management and use of pathway networks in order to maintain the services provided by frugivorous birds. Keywords Atlantic Forest · Carlos Botelho State Park · Conservation · Frugivores · Linear gaps
Introduction
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s42965-020-00097-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Bruna Gonçalves da Silva [email protected] Wesley Rodrigues Silva [email protected] 1
Departamento de Biologia Animal, Programa de Pós‑Graduação em Ecologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas-UNICAMP, Rua Monteiro Lobato, 255, Campinas, SP 13083‑862, Brazil
2
Departamento de Biologia Animal, Universidade Estadual de Campinas-UNICAMP, Rua Monteiro Lobato, 255, Campinas, SP 13083‑862, Brazil
3
Present Address: Jardim Botânico de Jundiaí, Avenida Navarro de Andrade, 120, Jundiaí, SP 13214‑010, Brazil
The Atlantic Forest in Brazil is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, with high levels of endemism, numerous threatened species and high rates of species loss (Brooks et al. 1999; Myers et al. 2000). Most Atlantic Forest remnants are protected areas located in the Southeast Region of Brazil, the mo
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