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Place of publication :
Publication year : 2011
Thematic : Biodiversity
Language : English
Note
Large areas of tropical forest now exist as remnants scattered across agricultural landscapes, and so
understanding the impacts of forest fragmentation is important for biodiversity conservation. We
examined species richness and nestedness among tropical forest remnants in birds (meta-analysis
of published studies) and insects (field data for fruit-feeding Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths)
and ants). Species–area relationships were evident in all four taxa, and avian and insect assemblages
in remnants typically were nested subsets of those in larger areas. Avian carnivores and nectarivores
and predatory ants were more nested than other guilds, implying that the sequential loss of species
was more predictable in these groups, and that fragmentation alters the trophic organization of communities.
For butterflies, the ordering of fragments to achieve maximum nestedness was by
fragment area, suggesting that differences among fragments were driven mainly by extinction. In
contrast for moths, maximum nestedness was achieved by ordering species by wing length; species
with longer wings (implying better dispersal) were more likely to occur at all sites, including low
diversity sites, suggesting that differences among fragments were driven more strongly by colonization.
Although all four taxa exhibited high levels of nestedness, patterns of species turnover were
also idiosyncratic, and thus even species-poor sites contributed to landscape-scale biodiversity,
particularly for insects.
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Encoded by : Pauline Carmel Joy Eje
