Loss and gain of the bird species after the establishment of oil palm plantation in South Sumatra

Abstract

The development of oil palm has been documented as one of factor caused deforestation leading to the loss of biodiversity, however, to what extent the impacts of oil palm conversion on biodiversity in South Sumatra remain little-known. To answer this issue, we studied the diversity of bird in the area before and after oil palm established by calculating species number, richness, evenness, similarity, and composition. Secondary forest, shrubs and rubber plantation were identified as area before oil palm establishment through Landsat image analysis, while in the established oil palm plantation area, we classified into the young, mature and old stand of oil palm. We recorded 49 bird species, 25 families and 298 individuals. Our result showed that conversion secondary forest, shrubs and rubber plantation to oil palm plantation resulted in the variation of losing, gaining, and persisting of bird species at both habitats. Losses of bird species varied about 16%-38%, but the loss of bird species was more drastic in shrubs. Gaining of bird species also varied about 12.5% to 45% where conversion rubber plantation to oil palm impacted the highest bird species procuration. Meanwhile, bird species persistence ranged between 38%-50%. Secondary forest as the habitat condition before the establishment of oil palm had the highest bird diversity (33 species), while the palm oil plantations had the lowest bird species (11 species). The most of bird species lost were insectivorous birds. However, bird species gain was also dominated by insectivorous birds. Declines in insectivorous bird species that are important for an ecosystem process service in this study area may not significantly decline in that process service because of the other species in the similar functionally group increase in the response. Calculation of loss and gain of biodiversity as a result of land use change is necessary as a strategy for biodiversity conservation in an agricultural landscape.