Maintaining ecosystem resilience: functional responses of tree cavity nesters to logging in temperate forests of the Americas

• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-04733-2
• Publication Date: 2017-06-26T11:59:34Z
• Authors: José Tomás Ibarra; Michaela Martin; Kristina L. Cockle; Kathy Martin
• Keywords: 0106 biological sciences; 570; Canada; Biología; Science; Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Forests; 01 natural sciences; Article; Nesting Behavior; Trees; Birds; FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY; LOGGING; https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.6; Animals; 14. Life underwater; Chile; https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1; Forest Sciences; Ecosystem; 2. Zero hunger; Geography; Nicho (Ecología); Plant Sciences; Q; R; Agriculture; Genetics and Genomics; Biodiversity; 15. Life on land; CAVITY-NESTING VERTEBRATES; Resiliencia (Ecología) - ChileTala de bosques - Chile; TEMPERATE FOREST; Medicine; Americas

AbstractLogging often reduces taxonomic diversity in forest communities, but little is known about how this biodiversity loss affects the resilience of ecosystem functions. We examined how partial logging and clearcutting of temperate forests influenced functional diversity of birds that nest in tree cavities. We used point-counts in a before-after-control-impact design to examine the effects of logging on the value, range, and density of functional traits in bird communities in Canada (21 species) and Chile (16 species). Clearcutting, but not partial logging, reduced diversity in both systems. The effect was much more pronounced in Chile, where logging operations removed critical nesting resources (large decaying trees), than in Canada, where decaying aspenPopulus tremuloideswere retained on site. In Chile, logging was accompanied by declines in species richness, functional richness (amount of functional niche occupied by species), community-weighted body mass (average mass, weighted by species densities), and functional divergence (degree of maximization of divergence in occupied functional niche). In Canada, clearcutting did not affect species richness but nevertheless reduced functional richness and community-weighted body mass. Although some cavity-nesting birds can persist under intensive logging operations, their ecosystem functions may be severely compromised unless future nest trees can be retained on logged sites.