Conservation Of Avian Biodiversity Research Articles

An introduction to predictive distribution modelling for conservation to encourage novel perspectives

The rapid pace and potentially irreversible consequences of global change create an urgent need to predict the spatial responses of biota for conservation to better inform the prioritization and management of terrestrial habitats and prevent future extinctions. Here, we provide an accessible entry point to the field to guide near-future work building predictive species distribution models (SDMs) by synthesizing a technical framework for the proactive conservation of avian biodiversity. Our framework offers a useful approach to navigate the challenges surrounding the large spatio-temporal resolution of datasets and datasets that favor hypothesis testing at broad spatio-temporal scales and coarse resolutions, which can affect our ability to assess the validity of current predicted distributions. We explain how to improve the accuracy of predictive models by determining the extent to which: 1) dispersal limitation impacts the rate of range shifts, 2) taxa are rare at their range limits, and 3) land use and climate change interact. Finally, we offer approaches to filling knowledge gaps by creatively leveraging existing methods and data sources.

Construction of avian biodiversity conservation patterns and optimization of ecological corridors in Jiangsu province

Construction of avian biodiversity conservation patterns and optimization of ecological corridors in Jiangsu province

Bird Community Composition and Functional Guilds Response to Vegetation Structure in Southwest Ethiopia

Shade coffee farms in southwest Ethiopia are known to host high levels of avian biodiversity. However, these farms vary in terms of forest management, which affects their understory, mid-story, crown cover, and canopy closure, and hence their structural complexity. Such differences in vegetation structure can potentially affect the survival of specialist bird species, and shade coffee farms may not equally contribute to avian biodiversity conservation. This study aimed to investigate how avian community composition, richness, and the relative abundance of different bird functional guilds relate to structural differences in vegetation shaped by forest management. Bird guild classification was based on bird species forest dependence, diet type, migration status, nest type, foraging, and nesting strata, and bird communities were surveyed using the Timed Species Counts (TSCs) method. Species turnover in bird communities was evaluated using detrended correspondence analysis and redundancy analysis, whereby multiple regression models were used to examine bird guild responses to vegetation structure. Total bird species richness and relative abundance did not respond to vegetation structure. However, the richness of forest specialists and understory foragers, and the relative abundance of mid-high foragers, all positively related to tree diameter at breast height (DBH) and crown cover, whereas the relative abundance of species with medium levels of forest dependency, mid-high/canopy foragers, and open-nesters were positively related to basal area and canopy cover. This study demonstrates that the relative value of shade coffee farms for avian biodiversity conservation depends on the type of forest management, and that bigger trees with larger crown cover provide a habitat of higher quality to habitat specialist birds.

Multi-label bird species classification from audio recordings using attention framework

For the conservation of avian biodiversity, bird detection is vital since it allows ornithologists to quantify which species exist in a particular area. Analyzing their acoustic signals enables the efficient identification of multiple bird species from overlapping recordings. This paper addresses classifying bird vocalizations in real-time audio recording using acoustic analysis. Schemes based on recurrent neural networks (RNN) are presented in the proposed work. Gated-recurrent units (GRU) are a particular type of RNN that has shown remarkable performance in acoustic classification. We propose a hierarchical Attention-based bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) model for classifying acoustic signals of birds by using Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC). The attention mechanism has proved its superior efficacy in many acoustic, speech and music processing applications. The attention mechanism is employed to give a different focus to the information outputted from the hidden layers of BiGRU. We adopted a short-time sliding-aggregation approach to decide on the test data, in which probability outcomes are species-wise summed and normalized. Species with the highest probability scores are assumed to be the dominant species in the recording. Our Attention-BiGRU classifier achieves pretty high performance in the Xeno-Canto dataset, with an F1-score of 0.84, with competing performance to the state-of-the-art multi-label classifiers.

Landscape-scale conservation mitigates the biodiversity loss of grassland birds.

The decline of biodiversity from anthropogenic landscape modification is among the most pressing conservation problems worldwide. In North America, long-term population declines have elevated the recovery of the grassland avifauna to among the highest conservationpriorities. Because the vast majority of grasslands of the Great Plains are privately owned, the recovery of these ecosystems and bird populations within them depend on landscape-scale conservation strategies that integrate social, economic, and biodiversity objectives. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a voluntary program for private agricultural producers administered by the United States Department of Agriculture that provides financial incentives to take cropland out of production and restore perennial grassland. We investigated spatial patterns of grassland availability and restoration to inform landscape-scale conservation for a comprehensive community of grassland birds in the Great Plains. The research objectives were to (1) determine how apparent habitat loss has affected spatial patterns of grassland bird biodiversity, (2) evaluate the effectiveness of CRP for offsetting the biodiversity declines of grassland birds, and (3) develop spatially explicit predictions to estimate the biodiversity benefit of adding CRP to landscapes impacted by habitat loss. We used the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions program to evaluate hypotheses for the effects of habitat loss and restoration on both the occupancy and species richness of grassland specialists within a continuum-modeling framework. We found the odds of community occupancy declined by 37% for every 1 SD decrease in grassland availability [loge (km2 )] and increased by 20% for every 1 SD increase in CRP land cover [loge (km2 )]. There was 17% turnover in species composition between intact grasslands and CRP landscapes, suggesting that grasslands restored by CRP retained considerable, but incomplete, representation of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Spatially explicit predictions indicated that absolute conservation outcomes were greatest at high latitudes in regions with high biodiversity, whereas the relative outcomes were greater at low latitudes in highly modified landscapes. By evaluating community-wide responses to landscape modification and CRP restoration at bioregional scales, our study fills key information gaps for developing collaborative strategies, and for balancing conservation of avian biodiversity and social well-being in the agricultural production landscapes of the Great Plains.

Spatial and temporal differences in the foraging behaviour of birds in a mixed eucalypt forest and woodland on the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales

ABSTRACT In Australia’s eucalypt forests and woodlands, co-habiting birds differ in the foraging manoeuvres or methods used to search for and take prey, the substrates and plants on which prey are found, and the heights at which foraging takes place. On the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, eucalypt forest and woodland birds foraged on different substrates between study plots, seasons, and years. As a result, the proportions of foraging manoeuvres differed in space and time as different foraging methods were used to obtain food from different substrates. Of the 32 species tested for the summer of 1980/81, 24 foraged differently between one or more of the three plots studied. In winter, nine of 15 species on two plots foraged differently between plots. Differences in foraging were found between seasons and/or years for 20 species, including when data from individual plots were combined to test for differences in foraging between summer and winter. Of 70 comparisons of foraging behaviour for individual plots, that is, excluding combined plot data, 50 differed between seasons and/or years. Significant spatial and temporal differences in foraging were recorded for all foraging guilds. Bark and foliage foragers differed most frequently between pairs of plots in all seasons and years, with aerial foragers showing the fewest differences. Between seasons and years differences were greatest among ground-foragers and foliage-foragers where respectively 76% and 80% of intraspecies comparisons on individual plots differed. The differences were the result of temporal and spatial differences in the types and abundances of foraging substrates and the prey available to foraging birds. Each species has its own unique requirements and management targeted at one or a few species will disadvantage others. Consequently temporal and spatial habitat heterogeneity is necessary for the conservation of avian biodiversity.

Implications of future climate- and land-change scenarios on grassland bird abundance and biodiversity in the Upper Missouri River Basin

Over the past decades, numerous threats from climate- and land-use change to ecosystems have been identified. Grassland ecosystems are among the most endangered in the world and ongoing grassland declines in the Great Plains have been a major concern for avian biodiversity conservation. Threat mitigation may include biofuel cultivation, CO2 emissions reductions, and land conservation strategies. However, spatially explicit and species-specific population responses to future scenarios remain unknown. We show how future land-use and climate scenarios may affect abundance and biodiversity patterns for grassland birds in the Upper Missouri River Basin. We used georeferenced abundance records, 20 environmental predictors, and gradient boosting machines to create spatial abundance models for 24 grassland bird species. Models were scored to current conditions and seven future landcover/climate-change scenarios to spatially predict changes in bird abundance for 2050. Model accuracy varied by species (0.2% ≤ NRMSE ≤ 39.3%) but spatial predictions were highly accurate (.03 ≤ MAE ≤ 7.67). Mean abundances declined for eight species in at least one scenario, whereas abundances increased for 16 species. Multi-species change analyses identified areas of decreasing abundance, particularly in the southeast, whereas increasing were predicted at higher elevations to the west. Important predictors included temperature, forest distance, and elevation. Predicted abundances varied by species and geography. Abundances and distributions expanded for most species, but multi-species declines also occurred in many low-elevation areas. These models may improve understanding of species-specific responses to environmental change by identifying emerging areas of avian conservation concern.

Factors responsible for forest and water bird distributions in rivers and lakes along an urban gradient in Beijing

Urban rivers and lakes, in combination with nearby green spaces, provide important habitat for urban birds, but few urban studies have focused on forest and water birds simultaneously along an urban intensity gradient. In this study, we randomly chose 39 rivers and lakes along an urban gradient of Beijing to examine bird community parameters in relation to aquatic and terrestrial habitat conditions, aquatic life data, and water quality data. We selected models with the AICc (corrected Akaike information criterion) method, bivariate linear or generalized linear regressions, and structural equation modeling to determine distribution patterns of avian communities along an urban gradient and bird-environment relationships. We found that both forest and water bird species and individuals peaked at intermediate urbanization intensities, especially for abundance of both forest and water bird and water bird species richness and abundance. We suggest that the differences in the strength of response to urbanization and the similarities in the gradient distribution pattern between forest and water birds should receive more attention in future urbanization gradient studies. Significant correlation ship between species richness of resident water birds, fish foragers, and insectivore-frugivores, abundance of insectivores, insectivore-frugivores (negative), and granivores (positive) and impervious surface proportion within 1-km radius buffer of sampled sites became more evident after coverage of artificial surfaces exceeded a 50% threshold. Regressions showed that distance from the urban center, number of islands in waterbody, and proportion of gross or unarmored shoreline length were significantly and positively related to species richness and abundance of both forest and water birds. The availability of unarmored shoreline is a critical pathway through which urbanization detrimentally impacts avian diversity. Our results demonstrate how the urban intensity gradient affects the relative availability of food resources and habitat, which could provide practical applications for urban landscape planning and avian biodiversity conservation in urban areas.

Combining conservation value with conservation filters to guide forest management for avian biodiversity

Maintaining richness and diversity of bird species on forest landscapes has long been a major theme in sustainable forest management. However, effects of management decisions on species diversity are uncertain because of difficulties in accounting for all species simultaneously. Utilizing a diversity contribution approach, we applied an integrated coarse filter-mesofilter conservation strategy to inform avian biodiversity conservation in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA. Diversity contribution is a measure of relative contribution of a given area to regional species diversity based on species richness and distinctiveness, with region defined according to the study design. At the coarse filter level, we compared and ranked forest types by bird conservation value based on proportional representation of high-contribution sampling plots (sampling plots in the top 25% of diversity contribution) relative to proportional representation in the dataset. At the mesofilter level, we identified how plot-level compositional and structural attributes affected diversity contribution within forest types. We found that forest types less common in the dataset, such as cedar and upland conifer, had the highest bird conservation value, while the most common forest type (northern hardwoods) provided the greatest number of high-contribution plots. Stand-level attributes that increased structural complexity, such as higher densities of large trees, saplings, and snags, or lower basal area, tended to increase the likelihood of being a high-contribution plot within a given forest type. However, the importance and effect of different attributes varied among forest types. Our novel application of the conservation filter strategy provides a way to identify high priority forest types for avian conservation, and create stand-level prescriptions for increasing avian conservation value. Given data on forest inventory and bird community composition, managers can use this application as a planning tool in the face of uncertainty about how management decisions affect larger-scale avian biodiversity.

Wildfire and fire mosaic effects on bird species richness and community composition in south-western Australia

BackgroundA fire management strategy of deliberate patch-mosaic burning (PMB) is postulated to promote biodiversity by providing a range of habitat patches with different fire histories, habitat qualities, and vegetation ages at a given scale. We investigated the response of avian fauna to fire, particularly species richness and community composition, in a landscape composed of a diversity of vegetation ages including long-unburned refuges (age 26 years), compared with a landscape of uniform vegetation ages recovering from an extensive and intense fire.ResultsThere was no effect of heterogeneity in vegetation age on species richness at whole forest management block (about 6000 ha), or local (2 ha) scales. There were different responses of particular species to vegetation age. Nine species showed responses to vegetation age at local (2 ha) scales, which is presumably a surrogate for availability of key resources and which changes over time. Australian Pipit (Anthus australis Vieillot, 1818) were absent from swamp vegetation <3.5 years old, while Spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus Shaw & Nodder, 1792) were only found in forest vegetation <3.5 years old. Year-to-year changes in local assemblages were detected after removing the effect of time since fire. There was no difference in effect of the two fire regimes on assemblage composition or feeding-guild structure.ConclusionsMosaics of different vegetation ages had no net benefit for biodiversity, as measured by species richness and assemblage composition, at the forest block management unit scale. Different responses to vegetation age among bird species did not lead to increased bird richness at the scale of forest management block. A potential advantage of mosaics in conservation of avian biodiversity is through preservation of patches of older vegetation ages in the landscape, compared to the periodic extensive loss of older vegetation ages in wildfires. However, the absence of large-scale effects of vegetation age on bird species richness, the tendency for birds to specialize to fuel ages >5.5 years in the landscape studied, and indications of flexible responses of some species at landscape scales allows some flexibility in fuel management strategies and the scale at which they are applied with respect to avifauna.

Rearing and trade of wild birds in a semiarid region of Brazil

The rearing of wild birds as pets is directly related to cultural and socioeconomic issues, as well as to population declines for the species involved. This study aimed to inventory wild birds that are reared as pets and analyze aspects of their commercialization and the sociocultural context of this activity in the semiarid region of Paraiba, Brazil. The data were obtained through interviews and semistructured questionnaires comprised of questions regarding wild birds kept in captivity. Thirty men with a mean age of 45 years were interviewed. The birds were identified through direct observation of the species. The Use Value Index, which is a quantitative index that lists species by importance based on usage citations, was calculated for each species in three different ways: UVgeneral, UVcurrent, and UVpotential. Thirty-six wild bird species distributed among 10 families and 26 genera were recorded. The birds were raised because of beautiful plumage and birdsong, ability to mimic sounds, and fighting potential. Trade on wild birds is a widespread activity. Twenty-one (70%) interviewees had obtained their animals from illegal trade, which encompassed all recorded species. Nine respondents were authorized to legally raise and breed these species in captivity. Bird trade is a widespread activity throughout the study region, where individuals of many species are sold at prices ranging from R$ 5.00 (US$ 1.29) to R$ 5000.00 (US$ 1288.85). The results demonstrate the need to implement effective public policies aim at mediating the use and conservation of avian biodiversity, and improving the implementation of management plans for its conservation.

Cuckoos: The holy grail of avian biodiversity conservation?

The ongoing rapid loss of biodiversity is urging conservationist to develop biodiversity monitoring methods that are both effective and inexpensive. The identification of areas that are rich in biodiversity is an essential prerequisite to guide further conservation actions. Next to several data-intensive and more complex modelling approaches to identify biodiversity ‘hotspots’, there are also many conservation scientists and practitioners that are looking for approaches based on surrogate species or taxa. In certain cases, single-species surrogates have been proposed to represent a certain aspect of a broader set of species, but their effectiveness is a highly debated issue. A number of recent studies have suggested the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) to be an extremely effective, yet inexpensive, single-species surrogate to map and monitor avian biodiversity across continents and at different spatial scales. If this would indeed be the case, the implications towards conservation planning would be tremendous, which raises the question: Has the holy grail of avian biodiversity conservation been found? In this paper, the methodology and significance of the results of these studies are questioned and, hence, the use of the common cuckoo as a single-species surrogate for avian biodiversity. The studies all heavily rely on the AUC value to assess model accuracy of estimating common cuckoo occurrence using species richness (and not vice versa). Using simulations of different scenarios of relative species commonness and evenness, I show that the underlying statistical dependency between species richness and occurrence of a species results in highly inflated and volatile AUC values for the majority of the 300 simulated species, depending on their commonness and the overall species evenness. As such, I hope to be able to discourage conservation scientists and practitioners from investing time, effort, and money in using the common cuckoo as a single-species surrogate for avian biodiversity conservation.

Agricultural development and the conservation of avian biodiversity on the Eurasian steppes: a comparison of land‐sparing and land‐sharing approaches

Summary The break‐up of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to the abandonment of &gt;40 million ha of cropland, a collapse in livestock numbers and the recovery of depleted biodiversity on the steppe grasslands of Kazakhstan and southern Russia. More recently, large‐scale reclamation of abandoned cropland and intensification of agriculture are observed, highlighting a need for strategies to reconcile agricultural development and biodiversity. We related bird densities along a land‐use gradient to yield estimates from arable and livestock systems in central Kazakhstan to decide whether a land‐sparing, a land‐sharing or an intermediate strategy would result in the largest benefits for biodiversity. For ‘loser species’ (whose population size is reduced by farming), land sparing was predicted to support higher total populations of more species than was land sharing, at all production targets. ‘Winners’ (species benefitting from agriculture) profited from land sharing when judged from food energy or protein. Intermediate yields were best for very few species. Heavily grazed steppe grassland was important for several globally threatened and biome‐restricted species. Government statistics suggested that over 50% of abandoned cropland has been reclaimed since 2000 and crop yields have increased. In the same period, there was significant progress towards the designation of new protected areas, but the total area in Kazakhstan still falls short of the Convention on Biological Diversity's 17% target. Policy implications. Further increases in agricultural production are likely to reduce populations of most birds, especially if they are achieved by conversion of abandoned cropland, or grassland. Our results suggest that production increases would do least harm if they resulted from increasing the output of existing cropland, using approaches such as snow accumulation, no‐till and more efficient grain harvesting and storage, rather than from further reclamation of abandoned land that is now reverting back to steppe. Production increases should be offset by improved conservation planning through the designation of protected areas on land potentially suitable for cropland expansion.

Editorial: Avian Research

No abstract.

Exotic tree plantations and avian conservation in northern Iberia: a view from a nest–box monitoring study

The spread of exotic tree plantations on the North Atlantic coast of the Iberian peninsula raises concern regarding the conservation of avian biodiversity as current trends suggest this region might become a monoculture of Australian Eucalyptus species. To shed more light on the factors promoting differences in avian communities between and within exotic tree (Monterey Pine Pinus radiata and Eucalyptus spp.) plantations and native forests in the Urdaibai area (northern Spain), this study aimed to explore (1) how the type of habitat and vegetation characteristics affect bird species richness and the settlement of some particular species during the breeding period, (2) if some reproductive parameters (i.e. egg–laying date and clutch size) vary among habitats in a generalist bird species (the Great Tit Parus major), and (3) the existence of differences among habitats in the abundance of a key food resource on which some insectivorous birds are expected to rely upon for breeding (i.e. caterpillars). Our results confirmed that Eucalyptus stands house the poorest bird communities, and identified understory development as an important determinant for the establishment of titmice species. Furthermore, we found that exotic trees showed lower caterpillar abundance than native Oak trees (Quercus robur), which might contribute to explain observed differences among habitats in bird abundance and richness in this region. However, we did not find differences among habitats in egg–laying date and clutch size for the Great Tit, suggesting that the potential costs of breeding in exotic tree plantations would occur in later stages of the reproductive period (e.g. number of nestlings fledged), a circumstance that will require further research.

Protected area gap analysis of important bird areas in Tanzania

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Response of woodpeckers to changes in forest health and harvest: Implications for conservation of avian biodiversity

Abstract Woodpeckers (family Picidae) merit specific monitoring and management efforts, both as keystone/facilitator species and as indicators of forest condition. Recent studies indicated that species richness of woodpeckers was correlated with richness of all forest birds, thus suggesting potential exists for management practices that can address needs of woodpeckers in particular and other forest birds in general. We used data from a long-term study (1995–2008) from forest sites in the interior of British Columbia to evaluate how abundances of seven woodpecker species varied with habitat variables previously identified as associated with forest bird richness. We found that tree species richness had either a neutral or positive effect on the abundance of all woodpecker species, whereas abundances of most woodpecker species tended to be lower in stands with high densities of lodgepole pine. Abundances of most woodpecker species were positively correlated with density of beetle-killed pines. Relative to control sites, higher densities of most woodpecker species were found at harvested sites where most trembling aspen and large Douglas-fir trees had been retained. Therefore, management strategies that favour a mixture of tree species, with particular attention to retention of aspen, should safeguard populations of most woodpecker species. Abundances of individual woodpecker species were weakly but positively inter-correlated before the beetle outbreak, and less so during and post-outbreak. It thus appears that no strong trade-offs exist among woodpecker species. These results, combined with previously identified positive correlations between woodpecker and forest bird richness, indicate woodpeckers can be managed as a suite for the purpose of managing avian biodiversity as a whole.

Bird communities following high-severity fire: Response to single and repeat fires in a mixed-evergreen forest, Oregon, USA

Fire is a widespread natural disturbance agent in most conifer-dominated forests. In light of climate change and the effects of fire exclusion, single and repeated high-severity (stand-replacement) fires have become prominent land management issues. We studied bird communities using point counting in the Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion of Oregon, USA at various points in time after one or two high-severity fires. Time points included 2 and 3 years after a single fire, 17 and 18 years after a single fire, 2 and 3 years after a repeat fire (15 year interval between fires), and >100 years since stand-replacement fire (mature/old-growth forest). Avian species richness did not differ significantly among habitats. Bird density was highest 17 and 18 years after fire, lowest 2 years after fire, and intermediate in repeat burns and unburned forest. Bird community composition varied significantly with habitat type ( A = 0.24, P < 0.0001) with two distinct gradients in species composition relating to tree structure (live to dead) and shrub stature. Using indicator species analysis, repeat burns were characterized by shrub-nesting and ground-foraging bird species while unburned mature forests were characterized by conifer-nesting and foliage-gleaning species. Bird density was not related to snag basal area but was positively related to shrub height. Contrary to expectations, repeated high-severity fire did not reduce species richness, and bird densities were greater in repeat burns than in once-burned habitats. Broad-leaved hardwoods and shrubs appear to play a major role in structuring avian communities in the Klamath-Siskiyou region. In light of these results, extended periods of early seral broadleaf dominance and short-interval high-severity fires may be important to the conservation of avian biodiversity.

Inducing whole‐assemblage change by experimental manipulation of habitat structure

1. Habitat structure long has been identified as a primary factor influencing local assemblage composition. Most evidence has been in the form of correlations of species occurrence and assemblage composition over a range of habitats, with experimental verification of relationships being relatively uncommon because of the difficulties of enacting precise manipulations of habitat structure. 2. Fallen timber (also known as coarse or large woody debris) is one of the few habitat-structural elements in forests and woodlands that can be manipulated with relatively high precision. We report on manipulations of wood-loads on 30 experimental 1-ha plots in floodplain forests of northern Victoria, Australia, over 4 years (one pre- and three post-manipulation). 3. We show that very high wood-loads (80 Mg ha(-1)) and intermediate wood-loads derived from tree crowns (40 Mg ha(-1)) increase species richness (all species and ground-foraging species) and numbers of birds (all species and ground-foraging species) relative to the control plots. 4. Three bird species consistently increased most following manipulations: white-plumed honeyeater Lichenostomus penicillatus (Gould 1837) (fam. Meliphagidae), brown treecreeper Climacteris picumnus (Temm. & Laug. 1824) (fam. Climacteridae) and yellow rosella Platycercus elegans flaveolus (Gould 1837) (fam. Psittacidae). The honeyeater is not considered as a ground or fallen timber dependent species, while the treecreeper and rosella both are regarded as being dependent on ground-layer structure. 5. Fallen timber management needs to be considered in a landscape and temporal context for improving conservation of avian biodiversity.

Distribution pattern of endangered bird species in China

In this study, we determined six "hotspots" for avian biodiversity conservation in China. We analyzed the distribution patterns of 183 threatened bird species in China in conjunction with geographical data to produce a distribution map that shows the concentrations of threatened species. The six biodiversity hotspots are: the western Tianshan Mountains; the Qilian and Hengduan mountains; southern Anhui, southern Jiangsu, and the Zhejiang Hills; the Songliao Plain and the northern region of the North China Plain; the island of Taiwan; and the island of Hainan. Based on our analysis of a species-habitat matrix, species were determined to be distributed mainly in broadleaved forest, grassland and meadows, urban and agricultural areas, wetlands, and bush. Most species were commonly found to have a range of three to five different habitat types. Apart from the six biodiversity hotspots, six ecological clusters were determined. Protection strategies indicating different levels of habitat priority among the biodiversity hotspots were also recommended.