DOI: 10.5061/dryad.41ns1rndd
title: Functional traits of avian species of an Afrotropical forest

description: Aim: Although land-use change is a leading cause of biodiversity loss
 worldwide, there is scant information on the extent to which it has
 affected the structure and composition of bird communities in the
 Afrotropical region. This study aimed to quantify the effects of habitat
 transformation on taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity in
 Afrotropical bird communities. Location: Nyungwe landscape, a montane
 rainforest with adjoining farmland in south-west Rwanda.
 Methods: Data on bird occurrence, abundance, and functional
 traits were collected in 2017/18 using point-counts. We also collected
 data on habitat and morphological traits for all bird species recorded. We
 quantified bird diversity using a range of metrics, including the Inverse
 Simpson index, functional dispersion and the standardized effect size of
 mean nearest taxon distance. Results: In comparison to primary
 forest areas, even low levels of land-use change altered species
 composition, and reduced species diversity. Although overall functional
 and phylogenetic diversity were similar across land-use types, we found a
 significant contraction of trophic and locomotory trait structures of bird
 communities in restored areas and cultivated areas, respectively. Soil
 moisture, elevation, and lower vegetation height were major factors
 influencing taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic dimensions of bird
 communities, although their effects varied across these dimensions. Main
 conclusions: The sensitivity of forest species to minor habitat
 disturbance emphasises the value of conserving primary vegetation.
 Long-term conservation of bird communities in Afromontane ecosystems
 requires halting wide-scale destruction of primary forest, promoting
 vegetation heterogeneity in the ecological restoration of degraded
 habitats, and adopting wildlife-friendly agricultural practices. Our
 results suggest that monitoring and conservation in these landscapes can
 be refined using taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity metrics
 to provide complementary information about the current and likely future
 impacts of land-use change.
description: Avian traits were measured on
 specimens belonging to a range of British museums, principally the Natural
 History Museum at Tring. The presented trait values are averages of at
 least two adult males and two adult females. The dataset includes bill
 length (bill culmen: length between the tip of the bill and the skull,
 bill nares: length from tip to nares), bill width, bill depth, Tarsus
 (Tarsus length), Average Kipp's (Kipp’s distance: distance between
 the tip of the longest primary to the first secondary measured on a folded
 wing), Average Wing (wing length), Average Tail (tail length), and Diet
 (<b>VertFishScav</b>: vertebrate, fish and carrion;
 <b>Invertebrate</b>, <b>FruiNect</b>: Fruit, and
 nectar; <b>PlantSeed</b>: plant matter and seeds; and
 <b>Omnivore</b>: a combination of at least two food items,
 where no item exceeds 50% of the total diet). The taxonomy follows Birdlife
 International V3 World list. Further information on methods is
 provided in Pigot et al., 2020, NEE. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1070-4