Abstract
Habitat conversion in mountain areas threatens their biodiversity. The effect on biodiversity of creating a mountain landscape with a network of forest fragments and a cultivated habitat matrix is poorly documented in China. Bird communities in forest fragments and tea plantations were censused by field observations in two years (2018–2019) in three tea-growing locations, Anxi, Beifeng, and Wuyishan in Fujian Province, south-eastern China. Out of a potential pool of 247 forest-associated bird species, we detected the presence of 82, mostly resident species, 32–47 of those regularly visiting tea plantations. Species-accumulation curves indicated the near-completeness of the census. The Rényi diversity profiles indicated a more diverse community in forest fragments than nearby tea plantations at Anxi and Beifeng, but the tea plantations at Wuyishan supported a more diverse bird community than the forest. Avian communities in tea plantations were a significantly nested subset of the forest communities. Tea plantations can provide resources for forest-associated birds, but the effectiveness of preserving avian diversity depends on natural forest fragments and can be enhanced by landscape-scale management, when the biocontrol potential of birds can also be enhanced.
Highlights
Human domination of the biosphere is reflected in many parameters, among them the >50%conversion of the original habitats to cultivated fields [1]
During our survey of forest fragments and tea plantations, we found the presence of 85 species out of a potential 247 forest-associated species in three tea-growing regions of Fujian Province, southern
Abundances were lower during the autumn than in spring or summer in most sites (Figure 1), the abundance peak was observed in the spring in Beifeng, and on the tea plantations in Beifeng and
Summary
Conversion of the original habitats to cultivated fields [1]. These habitats, while often poorer in diversity than the original ones they replaced [2], still can sustain important components of biodiversity, and cannot be discounted as “biological deserts”. The originally dominant (matrix) habitat becomes reduced in area as well as fragmented, while the cultivated areas become the new matrix. While fragmentation in itself may not be detrimental [3], it is often accompanied by habitat area reduction, which has well-documented negative impacts on biodiversity [4]. The resulting mosaic-like cultivated landscape has large variability in the amount of original habitat left, the size, distribution, and configuration of the remaining fragments, as well as in the frequency/severity of disturbance.
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