TY - JOUR

T1 - Coffee management and the conservation of forest bird diversity in southwestern Ethiopia

AU - Rodrigues, Patrícia

AU - Shumi, Girma

AU - Dorresteijn, Ine

AU - Schultner, Jannik

AU - Hanspach, Jan

AU - Hylander, Kristoffer

AU - Senbeta, Feyera

AU - Fischer, Jörn

PY - 2018/1

Y1 - 2018/1

N2 - Moist evergreen forests of southwestern Ethiopia host high levels of biodiversity and have a high economic value due to coffee production. Coffee is a native shrub that is harvested under different management systems; its production can have both beneficial and detrimental effects for biodiversity. We investigated how bird com- munity composition and richness, and abundance of different bird groups responded to different intensities of coffee management and the landscape context. We surveyed birds at 66 points in forest habitat with different intensities of coffee management and at different distances from the forest edge. We explored community composition using detrended correspondence analysis in combination with canonical correspondence analysis and indicator species analysis, and used generalized linear mixed models to investigate the responses of different bird groups to coffee management and landscape context. Our results show that (1) despite considerable bird diversity including some endemics, species turnover in the forest was relatively low; (2) total richness and abundance of birds were not affected by management or landscape context; but (3) the richness of forest and dietary specialists increased with higher forest naturalness, and with increasing distance from the edge and amount of forest cover. These findings show that traditional shade coffee management practices can maintain a diverse suite of forest birds. To conserve forest specialists, retaining undisturbed, remote forest is particularly important, but structurally diverse locations near the forest edge can also harbour a high diversity of specialists.

AB - Moist evergreen forests of southwestern Ethiopia host high levels of biodiversity and have a high economic value due to coffee production. Coffee is a native shrub that is harvested under different management systems; its production can have both beneficial and detrimental effects for biodiversity. We investigated how bird com- munity composition and richness, and abundance of different bird groups responded to different intensities of coffee management and the landscape context. We surveyed birds at 66 points in forest habitat with different intensities of coffee management and at different distances from the forest edge. We explored community composition using detrended correspondence analysis in combination with canonical correspondence analysis and indicator species analysis, and used generalized linear mixed models to investigate the responses of different bird groups to coffee management and landscape context. Our results show that (1) despite considerable bird diversity including some endemics, species turnover in the forest was relatively low; (2) total richness and abundance of birds were not affected by management or landscape context; but (3) the richness of forest and dietary specialists increased with higher forest naturalness, and with increasing distance from the edge and amount of forest cover. These findings show that traditional shade coffee management practices can maintain a diverse suite of forest birds. To conserve forest specialists, retaining undisturbed, remote forest is particularly important, but structurally diverse locations near the forest edge can also harbour a high diversity of specialists.

KW - Biology

KW - Bird conservation

KW - Coffee management

KW - Ethiopia

KW - Forest conservation

KW - Forest specialists

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85033604008&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.biocon.2017.10.036

DO - 10.1016/j.biocon.2017.10.036

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 217

SP - 131

EP - 139

JO - Biological Conservation

JF - Biological Conservation

SN - 0006-3207

IS - 1

ER -