DOI: 10.5061/dryad.c59zw3rm6
title: Limited evidence of biodiversity spillover from forest fragments into oil palm plantations in the Amazon

description: Oil palm expansion is a major driver of the biodiversity extinction
 crisis. Emerging frontiers of oil palm development in the Amazon risk
 major biodiversity loss. Spillover of biodiversity from adjacent forest
 fragments into plantations may reduce the loss of functional and
 phylogenetic diversity, but the extent of this effect remains unclear. We
 surveyed bird communities in large forest fragments and oil palm
 plantations in the Brazilian Amazon during the dry seasons of 2012 and
 2016. We assessed the loss of avian functional and phylogenetic diversity
 due to forest conversion, its impact on community structure, and whether
 the percentage of forest and proximity to fragments in oil palm points
 mitigate losses. Compared to forest fragments, oil palm plantations
 exhibited lower phylogenetic and functional diversity. Conversion had a
 strong negative effect on functional structure, shifting communities from
 overdispersed to clustered, while phylogenetic structure remained largely
 unchanged. Trait composition also differed significantly between habitats,
 with shifts in the distribution of traits related to foraging behaviour,
 movement, and flight efficiency. Surrounding forest cover did not mitigate
 the loss of functional and phylogenetic diversity in plantations. Although
 bird communities closer to forest edges showed higher mean nearest taxon
 distance (MNTD) and its standardized value (sesMNTD), the spillover effect
 was weak, as indicated by the low R² in our models. Synthesis and
 Applications: Converting primary forest into oil palm plantations results
 in substantial biodiversity losses, highlighting the urgent need to
 preserve the few remaining large forest fragments in the area. Measures
 that enhance matrix permeability are essential to conserving the
 evolutionary and functional integrity of Amazonian landscapes and
 mitigating the negative effects of oil palm expansion.
description: # Limited evidence of biodiversity spillover from forest fragments into
 oil palm plantations in the Amazon Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.c59zw3rm6](10.5061/dryad.c59zw3rm6) ## Description of the
 data and file structure This dataset contains bird diversity data
 collected using point counts along 22 transects (11 in oil palm
 plantations and 11 in adjacent forest fragments) in the eastern Brazilian
 Amazon. Surveys were conducted to assess avian community composition and
 richness across contrasting land-use types. The dataset includes species
 abundance information, as well as point-level values for six phylogenetic
 diversity and six functional diversity metrics. Transect-level metadata,
 including habitat type, geographic coordinates, and landscape variables,
 are also provided. These data support the analyses presented in Cardoso et
 al. (2025). ### Files and variables #### File: birds\_data.csv
 **Description:**  ##### Variables * site: ID code of the point count for
 which species have been registered. * Habitat: The habitat in which
 species were recorded * Column C to KB: species registered during the
 study (species names following Jetz et al. 2012) and their respective
 abundances. #### File: new\_all\_data.csv **Description:**  #####
 Variables * n: number of observations * Habitat.x: Habitat to which the
 point belongs to * Year: the year when the data collection took place *
 Transect.x: ID code to the transect to which the poin-count bellongs to *
 point: observation number inside he transect * code: ID code of the
 point-count * long: Geographic coordinates Longitude (decimal format) *
 lat: Geographic coordinates Latitude (decimal format) * Dist_source:
 Linear distance (in meters) to the closest forest fragment larger than
 1000 ha. * Pland_forest: Proportion of forest cover in a 1km buffer. *
 Area_for.ha.: Area of forest cover in a 1km buffer * Sp_richness: total
 number of species registered in the point * meanMPD: Mean Pairwise
 Distance (Phylogenetic diversity)  * meansesMPD: Standardised effect size
 of the Mean Pairwise distance (Phylogenetic diversity)  * meanMNTD: Mean
 Nearest Taxon Distance  (Phylogenetic diversity)  * meansesMNTD: 
 Standardised effect size of the Mean Nearest Taxon Distance  (Phylogenetic
 diversity)  * meanPD: Mean Phylogenetic Diversity index *
 meansesPD: Standardised effect size of the Phylogenetic Diversity index *
 FD: Functional Diversity indx * SES.FD: Standardised effect size of the 
 Functional Diversity index * MPD.func: Mean Pairwise Distance (Functional
 Diversity) * SES.MPD: Standardised effect size of the Mean Pairwise
 distance (Functional Diversity) * MNTD.func: Mean Nearest Taxon
 Distance (Functional Diversity) * SES.MNTD:  Standardised effect size of
 the Mean Nearest Taxon Distance (Functional Diversity) ## Code/software
 Phylogenetic Diversity and Functional Diversity metrics were calculated
 using the picante package within the R environment (R Core Team, 2020).