Bird community in rupestrian fields from an ecotone: notes on habitat losses and conservation of the threatened species

Abstract

The Brazilian territory has the second largest diversity of bird species on the planet. However human actions have significantly influenced mountain environments which house the main Brazilian endangered birds. Therefore, the objective of this study was (i) to assess the bird community in rupestrian fields from a montane ecosystem of the Atlantic Forest-Cerrado ecotone; (ii) to measure the losses of field areas from temporal satellite image analyses; and (iii) to analyse the threatened bird species, mainly their season variation. The study was carried out in an area located in a montane ecosystem situated in an ecotonal region between two global biodiversity hotspots, the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado. A total of 45 species and 357 individuals were recorded in sampled rupestrian fields, and the families more representative were Thraupidae and Tyrannidae. Further, we identified a decrease in rupestrian field areas by land-cover changes (i.e. Eucalyptus plantations) from 2000 to 2019 years, that corresponded to 576.27ha.The results showed records of three threatened species; Anthus nattereri, Coryphaspiza melanotis, and Culicivora caudacuta, which did not vary between climatic seasons. We emphasized that the birds found in this study, specially the threatened birds, require conservation priority due to the habitat losses.