Abstract
Restoration practices are designed to reverse the negative effects of human activities on the environment, allowing the recovery of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. However, restoration activities require monitoring the recolonization of faunal assemblages to assess whether ecosystem functions and services performed by them have been recovered. Because of the presumed link between species traits and ecosystem functioning, a potential solution to evaluate restoration efficiency is the grouping of species based on their ecological functions. Here, we review studies on bird assemblages of active restoration sites in Brazil and apply a data-driven approach to group bird species into functional groups using species trait information. We reviewed if studies provided detailed information (e.g., data on species composition and abundance) for comparative analyses and evaluated how restoration time (i.e., how long-ago restoration started) affected the similarity in bird species composition considering three restoration age classes: recent, intermediate, and old. We also tested whether the composition of bird functional groups varies in restoration sites of different age classes. Although we found a small number of studies (n = 8) with birds in restoration areas, we compiled a dataset consisting of 232 bird species from 14 different restoration sites. We found that bird assemblages from recent restoration sites (up to 5 years) were dissimilar to bird assemblages from older restoration sites (over 20 years). Also, older restoration sites had a higher occurrence of more specialist functional groups (e.g., small frugivores birds of superior stratum). Despite the small number of studies, our results reinforce the sensitivity of birds to habitat changes and their potential in indicating restoration efficiency. We argue for the necessity of standardized protocols in the collection and reporting of data on restoration activities, which will improve comparative analysis in theoretical and applied restoration ecology.
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Data availability
All data files used in the study are available in https://github.com/RicardoAdelino/Restoration-Eco
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Acknowledgments
We thank the researchers of the Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Lab (EECon) and Ornithology and Bioacoustics Lab (LOBIO) from Universidade Estadual de Londrina for discussions and analytical suggestions. We would also like to thank all the authors that made their data available in their publications and collaborating for a more interactive science and two anonymous reviewers that greatly improved our work. This study is part of the Long-Term Ecological Research Network (PELD)—Mata Atlântica do Norte do Paraná—that is currently supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq 441540/2016-3 PELD) and Fundação Araucária (PELD 155/2017). This study was also financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) – Finance Code 001. CNPq also provided funding support to L. dos Anjos (306293/2014-5), while CAPES also provided fellowships to J.R.P. Adelino, L.C. Calsavara, G. Willrich and G.L.M. Rosa.
Code availability
The R code used in the study is available in https://github.com/RicardoAdelino/Restoration-Eco
Funding
This study was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq 441540/2016-3 PELD), Fundação Araucária (PELD 155/2017), and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).
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G.L.M. Rosa contributes with data analysis. L.C. Calsavara and G. Willrich contribute with manuscript conception, restoration data collection and review, ornithological data collection, ornithological data validation, and manuscript reviews. L. Anjos contributes with manuscript conception, ornithological expertise, manuscript reviews, and ecological background. M.R. Lima contributes with ecological and statistical expertise, manuscript writing, review, and ecological background.
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Communicated by: Caio G. Machado.
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Adelino, J.P., Calsavara, L.C., Willrich, G. et al. Ecosystem functions of birds as a tool to track restoration efficiency in Brazil. Ornithol. Res. 28, 38–50 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43388-020-00008-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43388-020-00008-z