Bird Assemblages at cleared hill forest and conservation strips in Sungai Asap, Belaga

Deforestation is one of the major causes of the loss of biodiversity as it limits food source,destroy habitats and both flora and fauna directly and indirectly. In Sungai Asap, Belaga, Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) had received a wide area for oil palm plantation and had allocated a few areas consisting of three strips of areas for conservation. The bird’s assemblages were investigated in order to find out the diversity of the birds in the conserved area. Mist nets are used to capture the birds and the species diversity is measured using Shannon’s diversity index. Species richness was analysed by ACE, Chao 2 and Jackknife estimators and species similarity was also calculated. Programs such as EstimateS and PAST are used in calculation in order to gain a near accurate result. The sampling from December 2008 until October 2012 resulted in total of 967 numbers of individuals with 74 species from 22 families. Both species diversity and species richness in Sungai Asap, Belaga show the decreasing trend in the early sampling period. However, with time, the species diversity and species richness slowly increases. Based on the estimation from the estimators, there are some species still unseen thus more sampling effort as well as sampling period is needed