The effects of landscape structure on functional groups of Atlantic forest birds

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the current scenario of human transformation of natural landscapes, fragmentation and habitat loss is considered one of the major threats to biodiversity. The characteristics of altered landscapes and remaining habitat patches influence the persistence of species and, as a direct consequence, the functioning of ecological processes. The main focus of studies at landscape scale is to understand how human modifications in natural areas lead to changes in abundance and richness of species. However, such approaches do not directly describe the functional composition of communities, nor do they describe the functional responses to fragmentation and habitat loss. Birds are an interesting taxonomic group to explore this theme, since they present important, broadly-described ecological functions for human modified habitats (e.g., seed dispersal, pollination, and insect pest control). Thus, we aimed to explore the functional responses of birds to landscape characteristics. We selected 14 human modified...