Response and impact of fire on bird community in the tropical rainforest: a review

Abstract

Tropical rainforests are often catch by fires. Unfortunately, study on bird community and fire incident was lacking and strongly biased toward temperate forest. The objective of this paper was to provide a review on the response and impact of fire on bird communities inhabiting a tropical rainforest, through an intensive relevant literature review. Most birds are capable to escape fires through flying, although some nestlings, poor fliers and terrestrial birds might not. Thus, direct impacts of the smoke and flames are less significant compared to the indirect effects on habitat alteration. During fires, some birds might respond positively: raptors might circle over fires searching for small mammals exposed on the ground, while insectivorous birds might catch insects in a smoke column. After the fire, habitat was altered, food supply might change (decreased for most birds), while bird community composition might change due to the shift of the population of competitors or predators. Previous studies showed that effects of fire on bird community and their habitat varied widely. In Sumatra and Kalimantan, after fire insectivorous species increased, while the number of frugivorous and omnivorous birds were declined. When fires become too frequent and too intensive, however, vegetation will not able to recover and might lead to the situation where recovery of habitat and the bird community becomes impossible.