Bird communities in two fragments of Cerrado in Itirapina, Brazil

M Telles,Mm Dias

doi:10.1590/s1519-69842010000300010

Abstract

The Cerrado domain is a mosaic of vegetation types at the local scale, and this environmental heterogeneity leads to high regional bird diversity. Therefore, we aimed to survey quantitative and qualitatively the bird fauna of two fragments of Cerrado and to compare them with an adjacent protected area (Estação Ecológica de Itirapina), in order to assess the heterogeneity of bird diversity in the region. The present study was conducted during 12 months from October 2006 to September 2007 in the municipality of Itirapina, Southeastern Brazil. Altogether we recorded 210 bird species. Fifty-six of them had never been detected in Estação Ecológica de Itirapina, and eleven species are new records for the whole Itirapina region. The list also includes six species that are endangered in Sao Paulo State and five endemic species of the Cerrado domain. Most species were recorded in less than 50% of the visits and exhibited low relative abundance. Primarily insectivorous species were the most common, followed by omnivores. Frugivorous birds were poorly represented. Carnivores were more abundant than usually observed in fragments. The similarity among fragments was higher than between fragments and the protected area. Considering the vegetation heterogeneity in the Cerrado domain, our results reinforce the importance of conserving fragments in order to sample this diversity.

Highlights

Detecting environmental quality and monitoring biodiversity is important for the conservation of natural areas
Species frequency of occurrence ranged from 3.1% to 96.9% (31 contacts) in fragment A and 1.5% to 90.8% (59 contacts) in B
Species richness Species richness corresponded to 27.27% of all birds of Sao Paulo State (Willis and Oniki, 2003) and 25.08% of all birds recorded in Cerrado (Marini and Garcia, 2005)

Summary

Introduction

Detecting environmental quality and monitoring biodiversity is important for the conservation of natural areas. Conservation strategies of natural areas require knowledge on the distribution and abundance of species, and studies on bird communities can provide suitable data (Naeve et al, 1996). Studies on Cerrado demonstrate high biodiversity (Klink and Machado, 2005). The domain is formed of a mosaic of different vegetation forms that varies from grasslands (‘campo limpo’) to forests (‘cerradão’), including gallery forests (Coutinho, 2006). This environmental heterogeneity is important to keep high levels of species richness and endemic species (Machado et al, 2004). The Cerrado is one of the world’s threatened biodiversity

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Conclusion