Diversity of Bird Communities in Tea (Camellia sinensis) Plantations in Fujian Province, South-Eastern China

Habitat conversion in mountain areas threatens their biodiversity. The effect on biodiversity of creating a mountain landscape with a network of forest fragments and a cultivated habitat matrix is poorly documented in China. Bird communities in forest fragments and tea plantations were censused by field observations in two years (2018–2019) in three tea-growing locations, Anxi, Beifeng, and Wuyishan in Fujian Province, south-eastern China. Out of a potential pool of 247 forest-associated bird species, we detected the presence of 82, mostly resident species, 32–47 of those regularly visiting tea plantations. Species-accumulation curves indicated the near-completeness of the census. The Rényi diversity profiles indicated a more diverse community in forest fragments than nearby tea plantations at Anxi and Beifeng, but the tea plantations at Wuyishan supported a more diverse bird community than the forest. Avian communities in tea plantations were a significantly nested subset of the forest communities. Tea plantations can provide resources for forest-associated birds, but the effectiveness of preserving avian diversity depends on natural forest fragments and can be enhanced by landscape-scale management, when the biocontrol potential of birds can also be enhanced.National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2019YFD1002100); Development and Reform Commission of Fujian Province, China (Minfa Reform Agriculture grant no. [2017]410).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ecological filtering shapes the impacts of agricultural deforestation on biodiversity

Funding: This project was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 32122057 and 3198810 to FH) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant 2022YFF0802300 to FH), and received further support from Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program (Grant 20223080017 to LY).The biodiversity impacts of agricultural deforestation vary widely across regions. Previous efforts to explain this variation have focused exclusively on the landscape features and management regimes of agricultural systems, neglecting the potentially critical role of ecological filtering in shaping deforestation tolerance of extant species assemblages at large geographical scales via selection for functional traits. Here we provide a large-scale test of this role using a global database of species abundance ratios between matched agricultural and native forest sites that comprises 71 avian assemblages reported in 44 primary studies, and a companion database of 10 functional traits for all 2,647 species involved. Using meta-analytic, phylogenetic and multivariate methods, we show that beyond agricultural features, filtering by the extent of natural environmental variability and the severity of historical anthropogenic deforestation shapes the varying deforestation impacts across species assemblages. For assemblages under greater environmental variability—proxied by drier and more seasonal climates under a greater disturbance regime—and longer deforestation histories, filtering has attenuated the negative impacts of current deforestation by selecting for functional traits linked to stronger deforestation tolerance. Our study provides a previously largely missing piece of knowledge in understanding and managing the biodiversity consequences of deforestation by agricultural deforestation.Peer reviewe

Diversity of Bird Communities in Tea (Camellia sinensis) Plantations in Fujian Province, South-Eastern China

Habitat conversion in mountain areas threatens their biodiversity. The effect on biodiversity of creating a mountain landscape with a network of forest fragments and a cultivated habitat matrix is poorly documented in China. Bird communities in forest fragments and tea plantations were censused by field observations in two years (2018–2019) in three tea-growing locations, Anxi, Beifeng, and Wuyishan in Fujian Province, south-eastern China. Out of a potential pool of 247 forest-associated bird species, we detected the presence of 82, mostly resident species, 32–47 of those regularly visiting tea plantations. Species-accumulation curves indicated the near-completeness of the census. The Rényi diversity profiles indicated a more diverse community in forest fragments than nearby tea plantations at Anxi and Beifeng, but the tea plantations at Wuyishan supported a more diverse bird community than the forest. Avian communities in tea plantations were a significantly nested subset of the forest communities. Tea plantations can provide resources for forest-associated birds, but the effectiveness of preserving avian diversity depends on natural forest fragments and can be enhanced by landscape-scale management, when the biocontrol potential of birds can also be enhanced

Patterns and mechanisms of bird community assembly along an Afrotropical elevational gradient in Kenya

Elucidating the underlying factors driving the rich biodiversity in mountainous regions remains a central yet unresolved question in ecology, especially for tropical regions. The classical community assembly theory posits that environmental filtering and interspecific competition result in spatial variation in local communities. In this study, we characterized the taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity of birds, and examined the potential role of deterministic processes in shaping community assembly along elevational gradients in Mt. Kenya, a typical Afromontane ecosystem. Furthermore, we employed a novel partial least squares regression (PLSR) methodology to investigate the potential ecological mechanisms that may account for bird distribution patterns. The gradual unimodal or monotonic decline in richness metrics (species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and functional diversity) and/or phylogenetic and functional mean pairwise distances with increasing elevation suggested a progressive loss of bird species across clades at higher elevations. Conversely, in the productivity-scarce highlands, heightened competition led to reduced functional affinity among community members, resulting in increased functional mean nearest taxon distance. Moreover, the shift from overdispersion to clustering in terms of phylogenetic community structure with elevation indicated a potential transformation from limiting similarity to abiotic filtering, while the lack of clear patterns or weak increased tendencies of the functional assemblage structures suggested complex interactions between ecological and evolutionary processes. Our investigation highlighted several potential explanations for the observed diversity gradients, including factors related to primary productivity (plant species richness and enhanced vegetation index), water-energy availability (annual mean temperature and potential evapotranspiration), and climatic stability (temperature annual range). Our findings highlight the need for a comparative approach incorporating multidimensional measures to study biodiversity spatial distribution patterns, community assembly processes, and sustainable conservation of tropical Afromontane biodiversity

Ecological filtering shapes the impacts of agricultural deforestation on biodiversity

The biodiversity impacts of agricultural deforestation vary widely across regions. Previous efforts to explain this variation have focused exclusively on the landscape features and management regimes of agricultural systems, neglecting the potentially critical role of ecological filtering in shaping deforestation tolerance of extant species assemblages at large geographical scales via selection for functional traits. Here we provide a large-scale test of this role using a global database of species abundance ratios between matched agricultural and native forest sites that comprises 71 avian assemblages reported in 44 primary studies, and a companion database of 10 functional traits for all 2,647 species involved. Using meta-analytic, phylogenetic and multivariate methods, we show that beyond agricultural features, filtering by the extent of natural environmental variability and the severity of historical anthropogenic deforestation shapes the varying deforestation impacts across species assemblages. For assemblages under greater environmental variability—proxied by drier and more seasonal climates under a greater disturbance regime—and longer deforestation histories, filtering has attenuated the negative impacts of current deforestation by selecting for functional traits linked to stronger deforestation tolerance. Our study provides a previously largely missing piece of knowledge in understanding and managing the biodiversity consequences of deforestation by agricultural deforestation