DOI: 10.5061/dryad.5x69p8d4m
title: Functional diversity of the avian assemblages better than taxonomic diversity in capturing the effect of protection

description: Protected areas (PAs) are the cornerstones of conservation and have been
 shown to support higher density of conservation-dependent species. The
 success of PAs has been attributed to their ability to mitigate both
 forest loss and forest degradation. Effectiveness of PAs is conventionally
 measured in terms of species diversity; evidence for the consequences of
 protection on the functional diversity of species assemblages is scarce.
 We utilized the Kerala Bird Atlas data to quantify alpha diversity, beta
 diversity, and functional diversity from 300 sites within protected and
 non-protected forests along the Western Ghats. Of the total forest cover
 in Kerala, about one-fourth is under protection, the rest constitute
 reserve forest (RF). We tested if various metrics of biodiversity differ
 across PAs and adjacent RFs and which metric better captures this
 difference. Results show that the effectiveness of protection varies
 across guilds and does not seem to impact overall species richness. PAs
 are effective at the level of assemblage composition, and support higher
 abundance of species of conservation-concern. Species diversity did not
 vary with the protection status. Functional richness was high in PA while
 functional dispersion was high in RF. The effect of protection was more
 prominently visible in terms of functional diversity than species
 diversity. Such empirical data may broaden our understanding of the PAs
 and assist in monitoring efforts.
description: This dataset is part of the manuscript which utilized data from
 the Kerala Bird Atlas. The Kerala Bird Atlas has been described
 elsewhere (Data set https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zpc866t8g ). Additional
 details on the 361 avian species were obtained from references mentioned
 below: ● Stewart, P. et al. (2021), Global impacts of
 climate change on avian functional diversity, Dryad, Dataset,
 https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dfn2z351n<br>● Wilman, H., Belmaker,
 J., Simpson, J., de la Rosa, C., Rivadeneira, M. M., & Jetz, W.
 (2014). EltonTraits 1.0: Species‐level foraging attributes of the
 world's birds and mammals: Ecological Archives E095‐178. Ecology,
 95(7), 2027-2027.<br>● Bird J.P. , R. Martin, H.R. Akçakaya, J.
 Gilroy, I.J. Burfield, S.T. Garnett, A. Symes, J. Taylor, Ç.H.
 Şekercioğlu, S.H. Butchart. Generation lengths of the world’s birds and
 their implications for extinction risk Conserv. Biol. (2020),
 10.1111/cobi.13486<br>● SoIB, State of India’s Birds, Range, trends
 and conservation status. The SoIB Partnership. 2020, pp. 50. Available at
 https://www.stateofindiasbirds.in/<br>● Pigot, A.L., Sheard, C.,
 Miller, E.T., Bregman T.P., Freeman, B.G., Roll, U., Seddon, N., Trisos,
 C.H., Weeks, B.C., & Tobias, J.A. 2020. Macroevolutionary
 convergence connects morphological form to ecological function in birds.
 Nat Ecol Evol 4, 230–239.
 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1070-4<br>● Praveen J, Nameer P
 O, Jha A, et al. Kerala Bird Atlas 2015-2020: features, outcomes and
 implications of a citizen-science Project. (In press) Current
 Science. All Analysis were done in R. R script for the
 same and input files has been provided.