Data from: Species-specific responses to habitat conversion across scales synergistically restructure Neotropical bird communities

Ecologists are increasingly exploring methods for preserving biodiversity
in agricultural landscapes. Yet because species vary in how they respond
to habitat conversion, ecological communities in agriculture and more
natural habitats are often distinct. Unpacking the heterogeneity in
species responses to habitat conversion will be essential for predicting
and mitigating community shifts. Here, we analyze two years of bird
censuses at 150 sites across gradients of local land cover, landscape
forest amount and configuration, and regional precipitation in Costa Rica
to holistically characterize species responses to habitat conversion.
Specifically, we used Poisson-binomial mixture models to (1) delineate
groups of species that respond similarly to environmental gradients, (2)
explore the relative importance of local versus landscape-level habitat
conversion, and (3) determine how landscape context influences species’
local habitat preferences. We found that species fell into six groups:
habitat generalists, abundant and rare forest specialists, and three
groups of agricultural specialists that differed in their responses to
landscape forest cover, fragmentation, and regional precipitation. Birds
were most sensitive to local forest cover, but responses were contingent
on landscape context. Specifically, forest specialists benefitted most
when local forest cover increased in forested landscapes, while habitat
generalists exhibited compensatory dynamics, peaking at sites with either
local or landscape-level forest, but not both. Our study demonstrates that
species responses to habitat conversion are complex but predictable.
Characterizing species-level responses to environmental gradients
represents a viable approach for forecasting the winners and losers of
global change and designing interventions to minimize the ongoing
restructuring of Earth’s biota.