Abstract
Selectively logged tropical forests retain high species richness and functional diversity, but species composition changes after logging, suggesting that some species are more vulnerable to logging than others. We did a meta-analysis to summarise the effect of logging on the abundance of individual bird and mammal species in tropical forests of Borneo, which have suffered some of the most intense selective logging in the tropics. We found that species classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as ‘vulnerable’ or ‘near-threatened’ are generally less abundant in logged tropical forests than those classified as ‘least concern’. However, the effect of logging within each IUCN category is variable, indicating that logging is not the only or main cause of decline in abundance. While our results show that closely related species responded similarly to logging, in birds there was significant variation between responses of some closely related species. Bigger species were significantly more susceptible to logging than smaller species in both birds and mammals. We also found that cavity-nesting birds suffered more from logging than did other species. Our results highlight the importance of identifying which factors lead individual species to flourish or suffer in logged tropical forests.
Highlights
A key driver of land-use change in the tropics is commercial selective logging (Edwards et al, 2014a), with more than 4 million km2 of tropical forests in permanent timber estates (Blaser et al, 2011)
We have reviewed studies that compared the abundance of bird and mammal species in unlogged tropical forests with the abundance of the same species in selectively logged tropical forests of Borneo, a global biodiversity hotspot severely threatened by land-use changes (Meijaard et al, 2005; Wilcove et al, 2013)
We found that the effect size of logging impacts on local abundance of Bornean birds and mammals differs among species, is higher in larger species, and is similar between closely related species
Summary
A key driver of land-use change in the tropics is commercial selective logging (Edwards et al, 2014a), with more than 4 million km of tropical forests in permanent timber estates (Blaser et al, 2011). There is serious concern over the environmental and ecological consequences of selective logging (Meijaard et al, 2005; Michalski and Peres, 2013), and the conservation value of logged tropical forests has been contentious. The conservation potential of selectively logged tropical forest is strengthened for two further reasons. The amount of tropical forest allocated to logging is increasing rapidly (Blaser et al, 2011; Michalski and Peres, 2013).
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