DOI: 10.5061/dryad.8kprr4xvw
title: Habitat use of Amazonian birds varies by age and foraging guild along a disturbance gradient

description: Patterns of habitat use directly influence a species’ fitness, yet for
 many species an individual’s age can influence patterns of habitat use.
 However, in tropical rainforests, which host the greatest terrestrial
 species diversity, little is known about how age classes of different
 species use different adjacent habitats of varying quality. We use long
 term mistnet data from the Amazon rainforest to assess patterns of habitat
 use among adult, adolescent (teenage), and young understory birds in
 forest fragments, primary, and secondary forest at the Biological Dynamics
 of Forest Fragments Project in Brazil. Insectivore adults were most common
 in primary forest, adolescents were equally likely in primary and
 secondary forest, and all ages were the least common in forest fragments.
 In contrast to insectivores, frugivores and omnivores showed no
 differences among all three habitat types. Our results illustrate
 potential ideal despotic distributions among breeding populations of some
 guilds of understory birds where adult insectivores may competitively
 exclude adolescent individuals from primary forest. Secondary forest
 recovery appears to hold promise as breeding habitat for frugivore and
 omnivore species but only as pre-breeding habitat for insectivores, but as
 the forest ages, the demographic structure of bird populations should
 match that of primary forest.
description: # Habitat use of Amazonian birds varies by age and foraging guild along a
 disturbance gradient **Cite this dataset:** Luther, David 2024. Habitat
 use of Amazonian birds varies by age and foraging guild along a
 disturbance gradient [Dataset]. Dryad.
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8kprr4xvw](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8kprr4xvw) **Title:** Habitat use of Amazonian birds varies by age and foraging guild along a disturbance gradient **Abstract:** Patterns of habitat use directly influence a species’ fitness, yet for many species an individual’s age can influence patterns of habitat use. However, in tropical rainforests, which host the greatest terrestrial species diversity, little is known about how age classes of different species use different adjacent habitats of varying quality. We use long term mistnet data from the Amazon rainforest to assess patterns of habitat use among adult, adolescent (teenage), and young understory birds in forest fragments, primary, and secondary forest at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project in Brazil. Insectivore adults were most common in primary forest, adolescents were equally likely in primary and secondary forest, and all ages were the least common in forest fragments. In contrast to insectivores, frugivores and omnivores showed no differences among all three habitat types. Our results illustrate potential ideal despotic distributions among breeding populations of some guilds of understory birds where adult insectivores may competitively exclude adolescent individuals from primary forest. Secondary forest recovery appears to hold promise as breeding habitat for frugivore and omnivore species but only as pre-breeding habitat for insectivores, but as the forest ages, the demographic structure of bird populations should match that of primary forest.  **Data Description:** The data for this research paper includes information about the sampling effort, species identity, age group, foraging guild, and habitat type in which a bird was captured. All data is described in the methods section of the manuscript but we provide a brief description here as well. The methods in the manuscript describes how a birds age was determined by the feather molt. Foraging guild was derived from Stouffer et al. 2020, which is also referenced in the methods section. Habitat type falls into 3 broad categories, secondary forest, primary continuous forest, and forest fragments. Each of these categories is derived from the long history of land use change at this study site, which has over 40 years of land use history information and avian research. Size = habitat size categorical variable 1ha, 10ha, 100ha, or continuous Age = the age of the bird based on the molting pattern of the bird. Categorical variable, juvenile, adolescent, or adult Count = continuous variable based on the number of individuals that were captured by species Nh = net hours in which sampling effort was conducted territory_size_ha = refers to the size of a species territory in hectares. NA indicates species where the territory size is not known. Rate = this refers to the capture rate of a species. For example how many individuals were caught at a sight given the number of hours of sampling at that site. Bin = refers to the detections of species used in binomial regressions and only has a 1 for detection of a species, and 0 when it was not detected Gam = refers to the capture rates of species if they were detected at a location. cells containing "NA" indicate that no data was available for that particular cell. Data is available here through dryad in the file named habitatagesize_Jan27.csv **Code/Software:** All data was analyzed in R as cited in the methods section of the manuscript. All code is also available her through dryad in the file named BDFPP_agestructure_foresubmissionFeb2024.r