Abstract
BackgroundManaged forests can become a seminatural habitat by allowing natural vegetation to establish under the tree canopy. The aim of this study was to examine how this natural understory vegetation in pine plantations affects bird community composition and diversity. We compared bird communities in three types of pine forest plantations that differed in the composition of their understory vegetation.ResultsOne thousand four hundred seventy-six birds of 33 species were observed in the three different forest habitats over two years. We found that the presence and composition of understory vegetation had a major role in determining bird community composition, richness, complexity and diversity.ConclusionsTo ensure pine forest with high biodiversity in the eastern Mediterranean region, the understory needs to be rich in shrubs that are attractive to birds and other natural fauna.
Highlights
Managed forests can become a seminatural habitat by allowing natural vegetation to establish under the tree canopy
We have addressed the following specific questions: (1) How does forest structure influence bird community composition, richness abundance and complexity? (2) What is the effect of understory vegetation on bird diversity? The results and recommendations of this study could be applied in semi-arid forests across the Mediterranean basin
The coverage of Rhamnus lycioides and other shrubs were the two predominant vegetation factors which affected the X-axis of the discrimination, whereas tree density and the coverage of Smilax aspera and Pistacia lentiscus were the main factors that contributed to the discrimination on the Y-axis (Fig. 2, Table 4 in Appendix)
Summary
Managed forests can become a seminatural habitat by allowing natural vegetation to establish under the tree canopy. Managed coniferous forests differ markedly in their understory vegetation: whereas some forests may be bare of vegetation, other stands of the same age can be rich in shrubs and climbers (Ne’eman and Izhaki 1999; Dufour-Dror 2005; Fuller et al 2007). This variability is an outcome of different forestry management and the wide variety of environmental characteristics among the managed pine stands, such as elevation, slope, bedrock, soil and fire history (Schiller et al 1997; Ne’eman and Izhaki 1999). The consequence was that these forests have become more diverse by natural processes and have eventually become seminatural forests (Brockerhoff et al 2008)
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