River dams and the stability of bird communities: A hierarchical Bayesian analysis in a tropical hydroelectric power plant

The effects of anthropogenic disturbance upon the stability of wildlife communities depend on the heterogeneity and connectivity of habitat remnants on multiple scales. The number of hydroelectric dams in biodiversity hotspots (Africa, South America and Asia) is growing rapidly. To establish their environmental impact, it is essential to understand the dynamics of wildlife communities before and following the establishment of dams. We evaluated the impacts of the filling of the Serra do Facão hydroelectric reservoir in the São Marcos river, central Brazil, upon the bird community. Using data from 1,145 surveys across 20 sampling sites over eight years, two years before and six years after the filling of the reservoir, we assessed the resistance, i.e., maintenance close to an equilibrium state during the disturbance, and resilience, i.e., ability to return to the original state following the disturbance, of the bird community. We used spatiotemporal hierarchical Bayesian models to a...