Input data and model implementation from: How do terrestrial wildlife communities respond to small-scale Acacia plantations embedded in harvested tropical forest?

To offset the declining timber supply from shifting towards more
sustainable forestry practices, industrial tree plantations are expanding
in tropical production forests. The conversion of natural forest to tree
plantation is generally associated with loss of biodiversity and shifts
toward more generalist and disturbance tolerant communities; but effects
of mixed-landuse landscapes integrating natural and plantation forest
remain little understood. Using camera traps, we surveyed the
medium-to-large bodied terrestrial wildlife community across two
mixed-land-use forest management areas in Sarawak, Malaysia Borneo which
include areas dedicated for logging of natural forest and adjacent planted
Acacia forests. We analysed data from a 25-wildlife species community
using a Bayesian community occupancy model to assess species richness and
species-specific occurrence responses to Acacia plantations at a broad
scale, and to remote-sensed local habitat conditions within the different
forest land-use types. All species were estimated to occur in both
land-use types, but species-level percent area occupied and predicted
average local species richness were slightly higher in the natural forest
management areas compared to licensed planted forest. Similarly,
occupancy-based species diversity profiles and defaunation indices for
both a full community and only threatened and endemic species suggested
the diversity and occurrence were slightly higher in the natural forest
management areas. At the local scale, forest quality was the most
prominent predictor of species occurrence. These associations with forest
quality varied among species but were predominantly positive. Our results
highlight the ability of a mixed-land-use landscape with small-scale
Acacia plantations embedded in natural forest to retain terrestrial
wildlife communities while providing an alternate source of timber.
Nonetheless, there was a tendency towards reduced biodiversity in planted
forests, which would likely be more pronounced in plantations that are
larger or embedded in a less natural matrix.