Long‐term change in the avifauna of undisturbed Amazonian rainforest: ground‐foraging birds disappear and the baseline shifts. (26th October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Stouffer, Philip C; Jirinec, Vitek; Rutt, Cameron L.; Bierregaard, Richard O.; Hernández‐Palma, Angélica; Johnson, Erik I.; Midway, Stephen R.; Powell, Luke L.; Wolfe, Jared D.; Lovejoy, Thomas E.
• Editors: Lawler, Joshua
• Is Part Of: Ecology letters. Volume 24:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 186
• Page End: 195
• Publication Date: 2020-10-26
• Subjects: Amazonia -- biodiversity erosion -- Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project -- bird communities -- bird declines -- climate change -- community change -- defaunation -- rainforest -- shifting baseline; Ecology -- Periodicals; 577
• DOI: 10.1111/ele.13628
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1461-023X

Abstract

Abstract: How are rainforest birds faring in the Anthropocene? We use bird captures spanning > 35 years from 55 sites within a vast area of intact Amazonian rainforest to reveal reduced abundance of terrestrial and near‐ground insectivores in the absence of deforestation, edge effects or other direct anthropogenic landscape change. Because undisturbed forest includes far fewer terrestrial and near‐ground insectivores than it did historically, today's fragments and second growth are more impoverished than shown by comparisons with modern 'control' sites. Any goals for bird community recovery in Amazonian second growth should recognise that a modern bird community will inevitably differ from a baseline from > 35 years ago. Abundance patterns driven by landscape change may be the most conspicuous manifestation of human activity, but biodiversity declines in undisturbed forest represent hidden losses, possibly driven by climate change, that may be pervasive in intact Amazonian forests and other systems considered to be undisturbed. Abstract : Repeated sampling of undisturbed Amazonian forest reveals strong declines for a suite of ground and near‐ground birds since the early 1980s. This shifted baseline in 'pristine' forest means that modern disturbed landscapes are more depauperate than revealed through comparison with modern control sites. Hidden biodiversity losses distinct from landscape change, and the shifted baseline that results from these losses, may be pervasive in Amazonian rainforest and other systems.