Bird species diversity in primary, logged and burned forest areas of Crocker Range Park, Sabah

• Main Author: Gloria Muring Ganang
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: QL671-699 Birds
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/42536/1/24%20PAGES.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/42536/2/FULLTEXT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/42536/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sabah

Birds are important elements of the tropical rainforest ecosystem especially in the process of destructed forest restoration through seed dispersal. The forest area of Sabah has been decreasing due to extensive human economy activities such as logging and natural phenomena like the draught period of El Nino which causes wild fire occurrences. This causes forest bird species to be threatened by the reduction of their habitat. The type of forest areas studied are primary, logged and burned forest where mist-netting method was applied in each forest type to find out the difference in bird composition, diversity, feeding guild as well as local and international conservation status. Habitat surveys were also conducted using square plots with a total of 0.1ha for each forest type. Habitat variables associated with bird composition were quantified. There were a total of 69 species recorded in the three forests combined. There were 27 species in the primary forest, 35 species in the logged forest and 38 species in the burned forest. The logged forest is highest in bird diversity with the Shannon Index diversity value of H=3.25, followed by primary forest (H'=3.11) and burned forest (H'=2.54). However primary forest has the highest value in bird species richness, followed by logged forest and burned forest. Burned forest has the lowest species evenness value. This showed high dominance of a few species in the area. Most birds occurred in the burned forest are belonging to the nectarivore/ insectivore guild. However primary forest and logged forest has more bird belonging to insectivore guild. Primary forest has the most species that are near threatened, followed by burned forest and logged forest. The study showed that distribution of forest birds depend on vegetation of habitat Therefore, it is important to conserve these forest areas for the continuous survival of forest bird species.