Affiliation:
1. Facultad de Zootecnia y Ecología, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua 31453, Mexico
2. Consejo Nacional de Humanidades, Ciencias y Tecnologías (CONAHCYT), Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua 31453, Mexico
Abstract
Grasslands are one of the most threatened terrestrial biomes leading to a loss of grassland biodiversity, including birds. Here, we studied the wintering grassland bird diversity and community structure in two private livestock ranches in the Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico. We explored how bird communities are related to vegetation structure, including shrub cover and invasive exotic natal grass (Melinis repens), two drivers of grassland bird habitat degradation. We used Hill’s numbers to estimate taxonomic species richness and diversity and related these metrics to vegetation covariables using linear models. We employed nonmetric dimensional scaling (NMDS) to explore the importance of vegetation covariates in structuring bird communities. We found that bird species diversity was significantly and negatively related to bare ground cover at a plot level. At the ranch level, shrub cover, grass height and natal grass were important in structuring avian communities, negatively affecting the presence and abundance of grassland specialist bird species. Our results indicated that shrub encroachment and invasive exotic natal grass cover may alter grassland bird communities and should, therefore, be considered in grassland bird conservation management.
Reference85 articles.
1. The Direct Drivers of Recent Global Anthropogenic Biodiversity Loss;Jaureguiberry;Sci. Adv.,2022
2. Almond, R.E.A., Grooten, M., Juffe Bignoli, D., and Petersen, T. (2022). Living Planet Report 2022—Building a Nature Positive Society, WWF.
3. Confronting a Biome Crisis: Global Disparities of Habitat Loss and Protection;Hoekstra;Ecol. Lett.,2005
4. The Last Continuous Grasslands on Earth: Identification and Conservation Importance;Scholtz;Conserv. Sci. Pract.,2022
5. Assessing the Effects of Climate Variation and Human Activities on Grassland Degradation and Restoration across the Globe;Liu;Ecol. Indic.,2019