DOI: 10.5061/dryad.jwstqjq8p
title: Land-use and elevation interact to shape bird functional and phylogenetic diversity and structure: Implications for designing optimal agriculture landscapes

description: Conversion of rainforests into agriculture resulted in massive changes in
 species diversity and community structure. Although the conservation of
 the remaining rainforests is of utmost importance, identifying and
 creating biodiversity-friendly agriculture landscape is vital for
 preserving biodiversity and their functions. Biodiversity studies in
 agriculture have often been conducted at low elevations. In this study, we
 compared the functional diversity (FD), phylogenetic diversity (PD), and
 community structure of birds along an interacting gradient of land-use
 (protected rainforest, reserve buffer, and agriculture) and elevation
 (low, middle and high) in Sri Lanka. Then, we measured compositional
 change by identifying how ecological traits (dietary guild, vertical
 strata, body mass, and dispersal ability) and conservation characteristics
 (forest-dependence and threatened status) responded to land-use types.
 Elevation and land-use interacted with each other to shape bird FD.
 Depending on the elevation, FD in agriculture was either higher or similar
 to forest. However, PD was similar across all elevation and land-use
 types. Bird community structure in forest was functionally and
 phylogenetically clustered in comparison to agriculture. Insectivorous
 birds declined from forest to agriculture, and so did understorey and
 middle-storey birds. But frugivorous and canopy birds did not change
 across land-use types, while nectarivores, granivores and carnivores
 proliferated in agriculture. Forests were dominated by birds with low
 dispersal abilities, but birds in agriculture had more evenly distributed
 dispersal abilities. About half of all the individuals in agriculture was
 composed of forest species, several of which were threatened. Synthesis
 and applications. Most farmers in Sri Lanka practice agriculture on small
 farms (c. 2 ha) and rely on services (e.g., pest-control and pollination)
 provided by biodiversity for their livelihoods. Our results underline the
 important role of these heterogenous agriculture landscapes in maintaining
 high functional diversity (FD) and harbouring several threatened species.
 While FD in agriculture was comparatively high, conservation decisions
 based on land-use alone cannot be reliable, because land-use effects were
 elevation dependent. Thus, priority setting exercises aimed at designing
 optimal agriculture landscapes should consider landscape features, in
 combination with elevation, to benefit both people and wildlife outside
 protected areas.
description: In this study, we sampled the full elevation (90 m to 2180 m) and
 land-use (protected rainforest to agriculture) gradients in the wet zone
 of Sri Lanka. We sampled birds in the low elevation (90–799 m) habitats of
 Sinharaja western sector, middle elevation (800–1499 m) habitats of
 Sinharaja eastern sector, and high elevation (&gt;1499 m) habitats of
 Nuwara Eliya region between December 2006 and December 2007 (24,
 two-kilometre transects; see Figure S1 in Supporting Information). Later,
 between January 2008 and January 2009, we sampled the full elevation
 gradient from the Gillimalle Forest reserve to Horton Plains reserve (17,
 one-kilometre transects). See Appendix S1 of supporting information in our
 paper for further details on study design.
description: The README.xlsx file explains all the variables in the
 dataset.