Abstract
Human activities have modified landscapes worldwide, promoting fragmentation and isolation of forest habitats. Such landscape modifications are responsible for changes in species composition due to extinction and colonization events. Forest species dynamism is usually affected by forest fragmentation when remaining fragments are small and isolated, but forest dynamism is usually more stable when forest fragments are large and connected. In this study we verified changes in bird composition during 23 years of bird monitoring at the Mata dos Godoy State Park (PEMG). We aimed to evaluate the avian community dynamism of this reserve, as well as its effectiveness in protecting biodiversity in an extremely fragmented landscape. We reviewed historical records of bird species composition and checked for any possible misidentifications, updated the list and created an annual data set of bird species occurrence. We used this list to evaluate species persistence, species loss, and colonization over the study period. Additionally, species were classified according to their guilds in order to determine which species traits were associated with local extinction. A total of 331 bird species were recorded in PEMG over 23 years of monitoring, 17 of which were considered locally extinct or possibly extinct, and 11 were recent local colonizations. This indicates that bird composition in PEMG has been relatively stable over the years. However, local extinction was more likely for large frugivores and insectivores, which are guilds already known to be more susceptible to local extinction. Colonizations, in turn, were associated with guilds of more open habitats, like edge insectivores. We suggest that extinctions and colonizations are also potentially related to species distribution ranges and climate change. Although local extinctions occurred, PEMG still maintains a significant fraction of its historical avifauna and may potentially maintain source populations for many bird species, thus making it an important reserve for the north of Parana.
Highlights
Human activities, such as food and energy production, are responsible for the modification of landscapes worldwide (Foley et al 2005, Sodhi & Ehrlich 2010, Haddad et al 2015)
Over the 23 years of bird monitoring, PEMG presented low species turnover and a high number of bird species persisting over this time period
We argue that some features of PEMG contributed to its relative stability, these being high number of bird species, large core area, and functional connectivity with other forest fragments (Laurance 2002, Haddad et al 2015), especially in the eastern area of PEMG, which borders a large forest fragment (Lopes et al 2006)
Summary
Human activities, such as food and energy production, are responsible for the modification of landscapes worldwide (Foley et al 2005, Sodhi & Ehrlich 2010, Haddad et al 2015). In the north of Paraná state (southern Brazil), which is comprised by semi-deciduous forest formations, deforestation has led to the loss of approximately 98% of the original forest cover (Torezan et al 2005) In this landscape scenario, Mata dos Godoy State Park (Parque Estadual Mata dos Godoy - PEMG) stands out as potentially the most important reserve since it is the largest and most well preserved forest fragment in the north of Paraná state (Anjos et al 2007, 2009). PEMG contains 21 threatened species and 15 rare species of Angiosperms (Rossetto & Vieira 2013), which makes PEMG an important reserve for semi-deciduous forest formations This protected area has become a regional conservation reference because of its intrinsic biological value, and because of the development of several environmental educational programmes with local communities
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