Abstract
AbstractFrom 1999 onwards, level, lowland forests (altitude < 150 m, slopes < 10°) in the Tanintharyi Region of southern Myanmar have been cleared on a large scale and replaced by oil palm plantations. This has resulted in a drastic decline in suitable habitat for several species, including Gurney's pitta Hydrornis gurneyi (Passeriformes, Pittidae). The habitat for this species has decreased by > 80%, leading to its categorization as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2019. As threats in the region have continued, we updated information on the status of the species’ habitat in January 2020, and examined forest loss in the three strongholds where the species still persists in the wild. Since the previous estimate in 2017, suitable habitat in these locations has decreased by 8% (from 656 to 603 km2), with > 10% of the remaining area now in fragments of < 1 km2, which are unsuitable for the mid- to long-term survival of the species. Forest degradation and edge effects from increased fragmentation have led to further loss of suitable habitat in these strongholds. Projections indicate that unless conservation action is taken, all suitable habitat will disappear by 2080. The main threat to the long-term survival of Gurney's pitta is the lack of legal protection of primary lowland forests, resulting in uncontrolled clearance for small- and large-scale agriculture and industrial development. We provide recommendations to reduce the rate of loss of the remaining suitable habitat for the species.
Highlights
South-east Asian biodiversity is collapsing (Sodhi et al, ) as a consequence of habitat degradation and loss, mostly because of large-scale clearance for agriculture and infrastructure development (Laurence et al, ; Laurance & Arrea, )
As patches of suitable habitat . km are limited in the Tanintharyi Region, the stronghold was defined as a forested area including only habitat patches . km, each of which may hold a population of – pairs, according to preliminary distance sampling data from an ongoing large-scale survey (NMS, unpubl. data)
We focused our analysis on the hotspots, which we aggregated into two categories to determine the risk of future forest loss: new hotspots with significant, recent forest loss, and other hotspots where forest loss was either consistent over a longer period or sporadic
Summary
South-east Asian biodiversity is collapsing (Sodhi et al, ) as a consequence of habitat degradation and loss, mostly because of large-scale clearance for agriculture and infrastructure development (Laurence et al, ; Laurance & Arrea, ). Primary forest in the lowlands of South-east. TOMMASO SAVINI Conservation Ecology Program, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand. NAY MYO SHWE ( orcid.org/0000-0003-3739-3955) Fauna & Flora International, Cambridge, UK. % over the past years (Namkhan et al, ). This raises concern for threatened lowland forest biodiversity (Aratrakorn et al, ), in the unique and relatively pristine lowland forest transition zone surrounding the Isthmus of Kra, where Sundaic and Indochinese faunas meet (Hughes et al, )
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