The elephant in the ‘room’: determinants of songbird assemblages in the Thicket Biome, South Africa

Parker, Daniel M

Title: The elephant in the ‘room’: determinants of songbird assemblages in the Thicket Biome, South Africa
Creator: Parker, Daniel M
Date Issued: 2019
Date: 2019
Type: text
Type: article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/105134
Identifier: vital:32468
Identifier: https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2018.1562847
Description: When vegetation structure is altered, songbird communities may be affected. Despite speculation that African Elephant (Loxodonta africana) browsing impacts bird communities, existing data are limited. I sampled the bird communities of the Albany Thicket Biome at 10 sites in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, half with elephants and half without. Songbird community parameters were best predicted by how long elephants had been present, elephant density and the percentage cover of thicket vegetation. The sites where elephants had been present for longer had more bird species and increased songbird density and diversity. However, bird density also increased with increasing thicket vegetation cover and this is a phenomenon unlikely to be compatible with long-term elephant presence. There was an almost equal split between the number of bird species that appeared to be negatively affected by changes in habitat structure (47%) and those which benefited (53%). Smaller birds were generally more abundant as vegetation structural integrity increased and larger birds were more abundant when vegetation structural integrity declined. The browsing of elephants could be viewed as facilitative for songbirds in the short term. However, this effect may not persist in the long term because all elephant populations (notorious tree-fellers) in the Eastern Cape are found in fenced areas where natural migration is not possible. More broadly, my data provide important insight into how avian communities respond to habitat transformation at the local and regional scales.
Format: 9 pages
Format: pdf
Language: English
Relation: Emu-Austral Ornithology
Relation: Parker, D.M., 2019. The elephant in the ‘room’: determinants of songbird assemblages in the Thicket Biome, South Africa. Emu-Austral Ornithology, pp.1-9.
Relation: Emu-Austral Ornithology volume 119 number 2 157 165 February 2019 1448-5540
Rights: Taylor and Francis
Rights: Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Taylor and Francis Online Terms and Conditions Statement (https://www.tandfonline.com/terms-and-conditions)

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Parker, Daniel M (Prof)

RU Department of Zoology and Entomology

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