Data from: Forest-type specialization strongly predicts avian responses to tropical agriculture

Species’ traits influence how populations respond to land-use change.
However, even in well-characterized groups such as birds, widely studied
traits explain only a modest proportion of the variance in response across
species. Here, we show that associations with particular forest types
strongly predict the sensitivity of forest-dwelling Amazonian birds to
agriculture. Incorporating these fine-scale habitat associations into
models of population response dramatically improves predictive performance
and markedly outperforms the functional traits that commonly appear in
similar analyses. Moreover, by identifying habitat features that support
assemblages of unusually sensitive habitat-specialist species, our model
furnishes straightforward conservation recommendations. In Amazonia,
species that specialize on forests along a soil–nutrient gradient (i.e.
both rich-soil specialists and poor-soil specialists) are exceptionally
sensitive to agriculture, whereas species that specialize on floodplain
forests are unusually insensitive. Thus, habitat specialization per se
does not predict disturbance sensitivity, but particular habitat
associations do. A focus on conserving specific habitats that harbour
highly sensitive avifaunas (e.g. poor-soil forest) would protect a
critically threatened component of regional biodiversity. We present a
conceptual model to explain the divergent responses of habitat specialists
in the different habitats, and we suggest that similar patterns and
conservation opportunities probably exist for other taxa and regions.