Riparian reserves help protect forest bird communities in oil palm dominated landscapes

1. Conversion of forest to oil palm agriculture is a significant and continuing threat to tropical biodiversity. Despite this, little is known about the value of riparian reserves in oil palm and how these conservation set-asides might best be managed to maintain biodiversity. 2. We characterised bird communities of 28 sites in an oil palm-forest mosaic in Sabah, Malaysia using 6104 encounters from 840 point counts. Sites included oil palm riparian reserves of various vegetation quality and reserve widths, which were compared to oil palm streams without a riparian reserve as well as riparian and non-riparian control areas in continuous logged forest. 3. Riparian reserves, oil palm waterways, and control sites in riparian and non-riparian forest supported distinct avifaunal communities. Riparian reserve width, forest quality and amount of forest cover were the strongest predictors of bird species richness. For forest-dependent species, each of these predictors had stronger effect size w...1. 森林转为油棕农业是对热带生物多样性的严峻且持续存在的威胁。尽管如此，学界对油棕种植园中的河岸保留带（riparian reserve）的价值，以及该如何最优管理这类保护预留地（conservation set-asides）以维持生物多样性，仍所知寥寥。2. 本研究针对马来西亚沙巴州一处油棕-森林镶嵌景观内的28个样地，依托840次点计数法（point counts）获取的6104条观测记录，对当地鸟类群落进行了表征分析。样地涵盖植被质量、保留带宽度各不相同的油棕河岸保留带，并将其与无河岸保留带的油棕溪流样地，以及连续采伐森林中的河岸型与非河岸型对照样地开展对比分析。3. 河岸保留带、油棕水道，以及河岸型与非河岸型森林对照样地的鸟类群落均存在显著差异。河岸保留带宽度、森林质量与森林覆盖面积是影响鸟类物种丰富度的最强预测因子。对于依赖森林的物种而言，上述每一项预测因子的效应量均更……