Feeding Guild

The Knuckles Mountain Forest Range (KMFR) has a complex mosaic of natural and human modified habitats and the contribution of these habitats to the biological and functional diversities has not been deeply studied. Present study investigated both of these diversities in five habitat types (two natural habitats: Sub-montane forest and Pitawala Patana grassland; three modified habitats: cardamom, pinus and abandoned tea plantations) in Northern Flank of KMFR using birds as the indicator group. Bird communities were surveyed using point count method. A total of 1,150 individuals belonging to 56 species were observed. The highest species richness was reported from the cardamom plantation where as sub-montane forest had the highest feeding guild diversity in terms of Shannon Weiner index. The abandoned tea plantation and the Pitawala Patana grasslands with fairly open habitats, showed relatively lower levels of feeding guild diversities. It is clear that the structurally complex habitats contribute more to the area’s biological and functional diversities and need to be taken into consideration when developing conservation plans.

ABSTRACT To halt biodiversity loss in the humid tropics of developing countries, it is crucial to understand the roles and effects of human-modified landscapes with fragmented forest remnants in maintaining biodiversity while fulfilling the demands of local communities and reducing poverty. To implement appropriate landscape planning for conserving biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, appropriate information is required about parameters of habitat suitability among various anthropogenic habitats with a range of distances to forests and vegetation characteristics, but such information is limited. We examined differences in avian communities between a remnant forest and four types of man-made forest (two mature plantations and two agroforests) in a forest–agricultural landscape of West Java, and we analyzed the effects of both local and landscape factors on various types of species richness in this landscape. The results from non-metric multidimensional scaling revealed avifauna in the two types of agroforest was clustered separately from that in the remnant forest, mainly because drastic declines in the abundance of forest specialists (including IUCN red-listed species) and their replacement with open-habitat generalists. The mixed-tree agroforests were colonized by 30 % of forest specialists and forest-edge species found in the remnant forest, and maintained the highest richness of species endemic to Indonesia among man-made forests, implying that some forest specialists and endemics might have adapted to ancient landscape heterogeneity. High proportion of insectivorous birds was found in the remnant forest (more than 50 %) and drastically decline in man-made forests, although the species richness of insectivores did not decline significantly in broad-leaved plantations. We concluded that protection of remnant forests should be prioritized to conserve forest bird diversity. However, as different environmental factors affected the richness values of different ecological groups, appropriate landscape design and habitat management could improve functional diversity in forest–agricultural landscapes in the tropics.

He participated in curriculum development and various other community services. He advised more than 24 postgraduate students and published 22 articles in reputable journals. His areas of research interest include animal ecology, conservation biology, entomology and ornithology. K.S.A. Samad Kottur, currently working as a lecturer at the department of Pre-University Education, Kottur. He is a bird conservationist, freelance writer, wildlife activist and honorary president of North Karnataka Birders' Network (NKBN) and Society for Wildlife and Nature (SWaN), Hospet. He has authored 'Birds of Hampi' and 'Daroji-an ecological destination' and published more than 6 articles in reputed journals. B.B. Hosetti is a retired professor in the department of Applied Zoology and Wildlife management, Kuvempu University. He conducted many researches in various fields, especially in wetland ecology, environmental pollution, biodiversity and entomology. He advised more than 22 PhD students and published more than 120 articles in reputed journals, and edited more than 12 books on biodiversity and wildlife conservation etc. Author contributions: MNH involved in the design of the research, data collection, analysis and write up of the manuscript. ABS participated in survey, data collection and identification as well as write up of the manuscript. BBH contributed in supervision of data collection and manuscript preparation. Acknowledgements: We are extremely grateful to all faculty members of the Department of Applied Zoology and Wildlife Management, for their support. We are grateful to the Ballari Department for granting permission to conduct the study in the Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary and for their gracious hospitality during the study period.

Abstrak: Kajian burung telah dijalankan di kawasan batu kapur Bukit Kepala Gajah di Lenggong, Perak, dari Julai 2010 hingga Januari 2011. Kawasan kajian telah dibahagikan kepada tiga zon: pinggir hutan, perantaraan hutan dan pedalaman hutan. Kaedah persampelan jarak point count telah digunakan dalam kajian ini. Sejumlah 7789 pemerhatian telah direkodkan, mewakili 100 spesies-spesies burung daripada 28 famili. Pycnonotidae, Timaliidae dan Nectariniidae adalah famili dominan dan menunjukkan bilangan pemerhatian yang tertinggi dalam kawasan kajian, manakala Motacillidae menunjukkan bilangan pemerhatian yang paling sedikit. Spesies-spesies burung telah dikelaskan kepada tiga kumpulan pemakanan: pemakan serangga, pemakan buah dan lain-lain (pemakan segala, pemakan daging, pemakan madu dan pemakan bijirin). Kekayaan spesies burung-burung pemakan serangga adalah berbeza secara signifikan antara zon-zon hutan yang dikaji (Kruskal-Wallis: α=0.05, H=10.979, d.f.=2, p=0.004), dengan burung-burung pemakan serangga lebih banyak dijumpai di pedalaman hutan. Tiada perbezaan yang signifikan dijumpai antara kekayaan spesies di zon-zon hutan sama ada kumpulan pemakan buah atau gabungan kumpulan pemakanan yang lain-lain.

Phalarodon atavus from the Germanic Muschelkalk Basin was previously represented only by cranial elements. Here we report a nearly complete and articulated specimen of P. atavus from the Middle Triassic Luoping Biota, Yunnan, South China. This is the first specimen of P. atavus from outside the Germanic Basin. This discovery demonstrates a peri-Tethyan distribution of P. atavus. The new specimen is also the first one preserving the postcranial anatomy of this species, providing the opportunity to evaluate its sustained swimming ability. Inferences made on its functional morphology suggest that this species was probably adapted for active foraging. Tooth crown morphology suggests that P. atavus may have preferred externally soft prey.

It was analyzed the spatial distribution of the benthic macrofaunal of the Bay of Sechura (5°12’- 5°50’S and 81°12’ - 80°51’W) right after the end the 1997-98 El Niño. Temperature, dissolved oxygen, sand content (%), exhibited a decreasing trend from shallow to deep stations, while organic matter content, equitability and diversity increased with depth. The dominant feeding guilds were surface deposit feeders and interface feeders.

To halt biodiversity loss in the humid tropics of developing countries, it is crucial to understand the roles and effects of human-modified landscapes with fragmented forest remnants in maintaining biodiversity while fulfilling the demands of local communities and reducing poverty. To implement appropriate landscape planning for conserving biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, appropriate information is required about parameters of habitat suitability among various anthropogenic habitats with a range of distances to forests and vegetation characteristics, but such information is limited. We examined differences in avian communities between a remnant forest and four types of man-made forest (two mature plantations and two agroforests) in a forest–agricultural landscape of West Java, and we analyzed the effects of both local and landscape factors on various types of species richness in this landscape. The results from non-metric multidimensional scaling revealed avifauna in the two types of agroforest was clustered separately from that in the remnant forest, mainly because drastic declines in the abundance of forest specialists (including IUCN red-listed species) and their replacement with open-habitat generalists. The mixed-tree agroforests were colonized by 30 % of forest specialists and forest-edge species found in the remnant forest, and maintained the highest richness of species endemic to Indonesia among man-made forests, implying that some forest specialists and endemics might have adapted to ancient landscape heterogeneity. High proportion of insectivorous birds was found in the remnant forest (more than 50 %) and drastically decline in man-made forests, although the species richness of insectivores did not decline significantly in broad-leaved plantations. We concluded that protection of remnant forests should be prioritized to conserve forest bird diversity. However, as different environmental factors affected the richness values of different ecological groups, appropriate landscape design and habitat management could improve functional diversity in forest–agricultural landscapes in the tropics.