Effects of forest ropeway construction on bird diversity and its seed dispersal mutualism for endangered Taxus chinensis, southeast China

Abstract

The mechanism by which different types of human disturbance (fragmentation, urbanization, hunting, and selective logging) affect bird seed dispersal is well established. However, knowledge about how seed dispersal responds to forest ropeway development is still unknown. Here, we studied the influence of the forest ropeway construction, ranging from the pre-construction to the post-construction stage, including the construction stage, on bird diversity and its seed dispersal mutualism for endangered Chinese yew, Taxus chinensis. Our results first showed how bird diversity response to the disturbance of ropeway construction. Species number and Shannon-Wiener diversity decreased from pre-construction to construction stage, and then increased in the post-construction stage. Body size was an important indicator to explore the foraging pattern of birds across all stages. Furthermore, the network in three stage showed a random structure with a high connectivity and low specialization. Moreover, weak value of species degree, species strength and partner diversity was found in the construction stage. Most importantly, Hypsipetes leucocephalus was the most important disperser species in the whole stage due to its high value of species strength. Our results fills important gaps in our identification of how bird diversity and its seed dispersal mutualism response to the disturbance of forest tourism development. Our study also has relevant implications for the conservation of these increasingly disturbed ecosystems