Abstract
Forests provide bird communities with various resources, including food and habitats. Thus, forest attributes, such as size, structure, and species composition, influence the distribution and dynamics of bird species. This study was conducted to examine the association between forest condition, bird species abundance, and diversity within Chungcheongnam Province, South Korea. Zero-inflated binomial regression models were used to analyze a total of 1646 sampling points of abundance and diversity. Forest area, distance to forest edge, and tree size class were selected as covariates. Negative associations between forest area and overall bird abundance and species richness were indicated, whereas distance to forest edge was not a significant factor. This insignificance may be attributed to the relatively small, fragmented, and homogenous forest areas across the studied region. Results for individual bird species indicated that six out of the 35 major bird species had significant associations to the forest edge and three species showed a preference for the interior of the forest. The results of this study imply that other factors, such as food availability and biotic interaction, are more important when determining habitat preference in a relatively homogenous area with a long history of human disturbance.
Highlights
Since the 1960s, South Korea has become one of the most urbanized countries in the world [1,2].During this period of rapid development, many forested habitats were lost or fragmented [3]
There was a negative association between bird species abundance and log-transformed forest areas (Figure 2)
Bird species richness was negatively associated with forest area
Summary
Since the 1960s, South Korea has become one of the most urbanized countries in the world [1,2]. During this period of rapid development, many forested habitats were lost or fragmented [3]. The question regarding the ecological effects of fragmented forests has yielded a series of research studies to determine the relationship between forest fragmentation and fauna and flora [9], in South Korea (e.g., [10,11]) and around neighboring countries such as Japan and China (e.g., [12,13,14,15]). There are still knowledge gaps, especially at larger spatial scales such as landscape or regional levels [4,16].
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