The importance of natural forest versus oil palm plantation habitats for bird conservation

• Main Author: Donna Christine Simon
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: QL671-699 Birds
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/41419/1/ABSTRACT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/41419/2/FULLTEXT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/41419/

Habitat loss and degradation, due to selective logging and plantation development, are two of the principle threats to biodiversity conservation in Sabah. Since these threats will likely persist in the forseeable future here, there is a need to study the importance of degraded and converted habitats as potential sites for biodiversity conservation preferably in a landscape scale that includes some areas of primary forest. The present study was carried out to investigate the importance of natural forest (primary and logged forest) and oil palm plantations (pure oil palm habitats and oil palms interspersed with isolated degraded forest fragments) for bird conservation. Field data collection was carried out from April 2009 to March 2010 at Tabin Wildlife Reserve and the surrounding oil palm estates located in the districts of Lahad Datu in the east of Sabah. The objectives were to compare species richness, evenness, diversity, species composition and relative abundance of bird communities utilizing areas covered by natural forest and oil palm plantations. Searches for birds were made by walking at random within four 1km2 sampling areas i.e., two representing natural forest and two oil palm habitats. The sampling sites were located at the vicinity of each other. Overall, 155 species of birds from 42 families and 11 orders have been recorded. The total number of bird species present in the forest habitats (primary and logged forest) was 127. The conversion of forest habitat from a primary forest habitat to a logged forest and to oil palm plantation resulted in the loss of 62% of these species. The number of bird species observed in the primary forest and logged forest habitats was comparable with 90 species and 92 species recorded respectively. The species diversity and compositions of the bird community were also comparable for the two habitats but the relative abundances of the different bird species were different in the primary forest as compared to logged forest. The bird species that were most affected by logging in this study were Alophoixus phaecocephalus andTrichastoma rostrarum. On the contrary, species that are less common in the primary forest have increased in abundance in the logged forest such as Gracula religiosa and Phaenicophaeus chlorophaeus. In general, in terms of species compositions and relative abundance, the two sampling sites in the oil palm plantations were comparable to each other. In terms of species richness, the oil palm plantation interspersed with degraded forest fragments had 55% more bird species (53 species) than the pure oil palm habitats (34 species). On the whole, the present study found that the natural forest habitats were more superior to oil palm plantations for bird conservation. Logged forest as with primary forest is equally important for bird conservation. Degraded forest fragments located in oil palm plantations may help to increase the bird species richness in the oil palm habitats. But, oil palm plantations are generally of lower value for bird conservation where the majority of the bird species composition were those of common and disturbance tolerant species. Results of the present study support the “land sparing” strategy, which promotes separation of agricultural areas from conservation areas for biodiversity conservation.