Bain Glen C, MacDonald Michael A, Hamer Rowena, Gardiner Riana, Johnson Chris N, Jones Menna E
School of Natural Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, Tasmania 7005, Australia.
RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, RSPB Cymru, Castlebridge 3, 5-19 Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff CF11 9AB, UK.
R Soc Open Sci. 2020 Mar 11;7(3):200076. doi: 10.1098/rsos.200076. eCollection 2020 Mar.
Birds are declining in agricultural landscapes around the world. The causes of these declines can be better understood by analysing change in groups of species that share life-history traits. We investigated how land-use change has affected birds of the Tasmanian Midlands, one of Australia's oldest agricultural landscapes and a focus of habitat restoration. We surveyed birds at 72 sites, some of which were previously surveyed in 1996-1998, and tested relationships of current patterns of abundance and community composition to landscape and patch-level environmental characteristics. Fourth-corner modelling showed strong negative responses of aerial foragers and exotics to increasing woodland cover; arboreal foragers were positively associated with projective foliage cover; and small-bodied species were reduced by the presence of a hyperaggressive species of native honeyeater, the noisy miner (). Analysis of change suggests increases in large-bodied granivorous or carnivorous birds and declines in some arboreal foragers and nectarivores. Changes in species richness were best explained by changes in noisy miner abundance and levels of surrounding woodland cover. We encourage restoration practitioners to trial novel planting configurations that may confer resistance to invasion by noisy miners, and a continued long-term monitoring effort to reveal the effects of future land-use change on Tasmanian birds.
全球农业景观中的鸟类数量正在减少。通过分析具有相同生活史特征的物种群体的变化，可以更好地理解这些减少的原因。我们调查了土地利用变化如何影响塔斯马尼亚中部地区的鸟类，该地区是澳大利亚最古老的农业景观之一，也是栖息地恢复的重点。我们在72个地点对鸟类进行了调查，其中一些地点在1996 - 1998年曾被调查过，并测试了当前的丰度模式和群落组成与景观及斑块水平环境特征之间的关系。第四角模型显示，空中觅食者和外来物种对林地覆盖增加有强烈的负面反应；树栖觅食者与投影叶面积呈正相关；小型物种因一种极具攻击性的本土吸蜜鸟——吵闹矿工鸟（Manorina melanocephala）的存在而减少。变化分析表明，大型食谷或食肉鸟类数量增加，一些树栖觅食者和食蜜动物数量减少。物种丰富度的变化最好由吵闹矿工鸟的数量变化和周围林地覆盖水平来解释。我们鼓励恢复实践者尝试新的种植配置，以抵抗吵闹矿工鸟的入侵，并持续进行长期监测，以揭示未来土地利用变化对塔斯马尼亚鸟类的影响。
