Modeling bird diversity in a multi-habitat at mountain landscape undergoing agricultural abandonment

Tese de mestrado, Biologia (Biologia da Conservação), 2009, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de CiênciasResumo alargado em português disponível no documentoBackground - In Europe, agricultural land abandonment is one of the main land-use drivers in mountain areas. The loss of extensive traditional agricultural lands -due to intensification and abandonment- promoted steep declines of farmland birds during the last decades. On the other hand, native galicio-portuguese oak forests are important biodiversity reservoirs and mountains ecosystems provide important ecosystem services. Aim - We studied the bird communities by analyzing species-area relationships and spatial turnover. We aimed to model bird biodiversity patterns by testing the countryside-SAR (Pereira and Daily 2006). Location - The study took place in the Peneda-Gerês National Park, NW Portugal. Methods - Three main habitats (agricultural land, shrublands and oak forest) were defined based on land-use maps. Bird communities' parameters were described and species affinity groups were established at a small scale; species-area relationships were investigated using a medium-scale (local and landscape), while differences between bird communities were accessed at a regional scale. Results - Species richness was similar in the three habitats and specialist species richness was related with favorite habitat. At the landscape level, oak forests were more diverse than shrublands and agricultural land. Agricultural lands exhibit higher spatial turnover, although it was originated by ubiquitous species. Countryside-SAR provided a better fit to the observed bird diversity patterns. Main conclusions - The experimental design allowed a cross spatial-scale analysis of the bird diversity patterns in the multi-habitat context. Oak forests should increase their importance as a function of their matureness. The countryside-SAR model is unique in considering the multi-habitat context and species affinity and constitutes a new tool for bird diversity conservation