ORCID Profile
0000-0003-3403-2847
Current Organisation
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-06-2021
Abstract: The conversion of rainforests into agriculture resulted in massive changes in species ersity and community structure. Although the conservation of the remaining rainforests is of utmost importance, identifying and creating a bio ersity‐friendly agriculture landscape is vital for preserving bio ersity and their functions. Bio ersity studies in agriculture have often been conducted at low elevations. In this study, we compared the functional ersity (FD), phylogenetic ersity (PD) and community structure of birds along an interacting gradient of land use (protected rainforest, reserve buffer and agriculture) and elevation (low, middle and high) in Sri Lanka. Then, we measured the compositional change by identifying how ecological traits (dietary guild, vertical strata, body mass and dispersal ability) and conservation characteristics (forest dependence and threatened status) responded to land use types. Elevation and land use interacted with each other to shape bird FD. Depending on the elevation, FD in agriculture was either higher or similar to forest. However, PD was similar across all elevation and land use types. Bird community structure in forest was functionally and phylogenetically clustered in comparison to agriculture. Insectivorous birds declined from forest to agriculture, and so did understorey and middle‐storey birds. But frugivorous and canopy birds did not change across land use types, while nectarivores, granivores and carnivores proliferated in agriculture. Forests were dominated by birds with low dispersal abilities, but birds in agriculture had more evenly distributed dispersal abilities. About half of all the in iduals in agriculture were composed of forest species, several of which were threatened. Synthesis and applications . Most farmers in Sri Lanka practice agriculture on small farms ( c . 2 ha) and rely on services (e.g. pest control and pollination) provided by bio ersity for their livelihoods. Our results underline the important role of these heterogeneous agriculture landscapes in maintaining high functional ersity (FD) and harbouring several threatened species. While FD in agriculture was comparatively high, conservation decisions based on land use alone cannot be reliable, because land use effects were elevation dependent. Thus, priority setting exercises aimed at designing optimal agriculture landscapes should consider landscape features, in combination with elevation, to benefit both people and wildlife outside protected areas.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-12-2015
DOI: 10.1111/DDI.12292
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 05-2017
Abstract: Large tracts of tropical rainforests are being converted into intensive agricultural lands. Such anthropogenic disturbances are known to reduce species turnover across horizontal distances. But it is not known if they can also reduce species turnover across vertical distances (elevation), which have steeper climatic differences. We measured turnover in birds across horizontal and vertical s ling transects in three land-use types of Sri Lanka: protected forest, reserve buffer and intensive-agriculture, from 90 to 2100 m a.s.l. Bird turnover rates across horizontal distances were similar across all habitats, and much less than vertical turnover rates. Vertical turnover rates were not similar across habitats. Forest had higher turnover rates than the other two habitats for all bird species. Buffer and intensive-agriculture had similar turnover rates, even though buffer habitats were situated at the forest edge. Therefore, our results demonstrate the crucial importance of conserving primary forest across the full elevational range available.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-01-2014
DOI: 10.1111/ETH.12202
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2016
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-11-2020
Abstract: A single adverse environment event can threaten the survival of small‐ranged species while random fluctuations in population size increase the extinction risk of less‐abundant species. The abundance–range‐size relationship (ARR) is usually positive, which means that smaller‐ranged species are often of low abundance and might face both problems simultaneously. The ARR has been reported to be negative on tropical islands, perhaps allowing endemic species in such environments to remain extant. But there is a need to understand how endemism and land‐use interact to shape ARR. Using 41 highly replicated transects along the full elevational gradient of Sri Lanka, we determined the following: (a) the direction of ARR, (b) if endemism affects ARR and (c) if land‐use (rainforest, buffer and agriculture) changes ARR differently for endemics and non‐endemics. Additionally, (d) we identified endemics that had both lower abundances and smaller range sizes, and ranked them from most threatened (specific to rainforests) to least threatened using a weighted‐interaction nestedness estimator. (a) We found a positive relationship between species abundances and range size. This positive ARR was maintained among endemic and non‐endemic species, across land‐use types and at local and regional scales. (b) The ARR interacted with endemicity and land‐use. Endemics with smaller range sizes had higher abundances than non‐endemics, and particularly higher in rainforests compared to agriculture. In contrast, species with larger range sizes had similar abundances across endemicity and land‐use categories. Many endemics with smaller range sizes are globally threatened therefore, higher abundances may buffer them from extinction risks. (c) Nine (29%) endemics had both below average abundance and elevational range size. The nestedness estimator ranked the endemics Sri Lanka Whistling Thrush Myophonus blighi , Red‐faced Malkoha Phaenicophaeus pyrrhocephalus , Sri Lanka Thrush Zoothera imbricata and White‐faced Starling Sturnornis albofrontus as the four most vulnerable species to local extinction risk, which corresponds to their global extinction risk. We demonstrate that ARR can be positive on tropical islands, but it is influenced by endemism and land‐use. Examining shifts in ARR is not only important to understand community dynamics but can also act as a tool to inform managers about species that require monitoring programmes.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-06-2015
DOI: 10.1038/SREP11569
Abstract: Understory avian insectivores are especially sensitive to deforestation, although regional differences in how these species respond to human disturbance may be linked to varying land-use histories. South Asia experienced widespread conversion of forest to agriculture in the nineteenth century, providing a comparison to tropical areas deforested more recently. In Sri Lanka and the Western Ghats of India, we compared understory insectivores to other guilds and to insectivores with different vertical strata preferences, both inside mixed-species flocks and for the whole bird community. Overall species richness did not change across the land-use gradient, although there was substantial turnover in species composition between land-use types. We found that the proportion of species represented by insectivores was ~1.14 times higher in forest compared to agriculture and the proportion of insectivores represented by understory species was ~1.32 times higher in forests. Mass-abundance relationships were very different when analyzed on mixed-species flocks compared to the total community, perhaps indicating reduced competition in these mutualisms. We show that South Asia fits the worldwide pattern of understory insectivores declining with increased land-use intensity and conclude that these species can be used globally as indicator and/or umbrella species for conservation across different disturbance time scales.
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 16-11-2021
Publisher: Brill
Date: 2014
DOI: 10.1163/1568539X-00003123
Abstract: Several species of birds vocally imitate sounds associated with danger. Two anecdotal studies suggest that such ‘danger mimicry’ increases during nesting, but such a relationship has not been quantitatively demonstrated. Sri Lanka drongos ( Dicrurus paradiseus lophorhinus ) are known to imitate predators and other species’ mobbing and alarm calls in alarm contexts. Here we investigated whether drongos vary their production of danger mimicry in different nesting stages (building, incubation, nests with hatchlings, fledglings still outside of mixed-species flocks), and when foraging away from young in mixed-species flocks. We recorded drongos over two breeding seasons at 14 different nesting trees, used year-after-year. We found that of all the types of danger mimicry, imitation of predators was the most common and exclusive to drongos that had young offspring. Such predator mimicry was observed at a higher rate during the hatchling and fledgling stages compared to incubation or flocks. Danger mimicry did not, however, increase during this stage in isolation: drongo species-specific alarm calls also increased, and the close connection between these two types of calls did not appear to change. Although it is possible that the association between danger mimicry and species-specific alarm calls could help young birds learn sounds associated with danger, the performance of this behaviour does not seem exclusive enough to interactions between adult drongos and their offspring to meet functional definitions of teaching.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-11-2010
DOI: 10.1007/S00114-009-0617-7
Abstract: While some avian mimics appear to select sounds randomly, other species preferentially imitate sounds such as predator calls that are associated with danger. Previous work has shown that the Greater Racket-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus) incorporates predator calls and heterospecific alarm calls into its own species-typical alarm vocalizations. Here, we show that another passerine species, the Sri Lanka Magpie (Urocissa ornata), which inhabits the same Sri Lankan rainforest, imitates three of the same predator calls that drongos do. For two of these call types, there is evidence that magpies also use them in alarm contexts. Our results support the hypothesis that imitated predator calls can serve as signals of alarm to multiple species.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2010.01.002
Abstract: Acquiring information from the cues and signals of other species of the same trophic level is widespread among animals, and can help in iduals exploit resources and avoid predators. But can such interspecific information transfer also influence the spatial structure of species within communities? Whereas some species use heterospecific information without changing their position, we review research that indicates that heterospecific information is a driving factor in the formation or maintenance of temporary or stable mixed-species groups. Heterospecific information can also influence the organization of such groups, including leadership. Further, animals sometimes select habitats using heterospecific information. We survey interspecific information transfer, and evaluate the morphological, ecological and behavioral factors that make some species information sources and others information seekers.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-02-2016
DOI: 10.1038/SREP21822
Abstract: Rising global demand for natural rubber is expanding monoculture rubber ( Hevea brasilensis ) at the expense of natural forests in the Old World tropics. Conversion of forests into rubber plantations has a devastating impact on bio ersity and we have yet to identify management strategies that can mitigate this. We determined the life-history traits that best predict bird species occurrence in rubber plantations in SW China and investigated the effects of surrounding forest cover and distance to roads on bird ersity. Mistletoes provide nectar and fruit resources in rubber so we examined mistletoe densities and the relationship with forest cover and rubber tree diameter. In rubber plantations, we recorded less than half of all bird species extant in the surrounding area. Birds with wider habitat breadths and low conservation value had a higher probability of occurrence. Species richness and ersity increased logarithmically with surrounding forest cover, but roads had little effect. Mistletoe density increased exponentially with rubber tree diameters, but was unrelated to forest cover. To maximize bird ersity in rubber-dominated landscapes it is therefore necessary to preserve as much forest as possible, construct roads through plantations and not forest and retain some large rubber trees with mistletoes during crop rotations.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2017
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 25-02-2020
DOI: 10.1111/BRV.12591
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 27-01-2018
No related grants have been discovered for Eben Goodale.