Birds of the man-made ecosystems: the plantations

Abstract

One-hectare plots were sampled for bird species diversity in the Uttara Kannada district. These plots represented well-preserved evergreen/semievergreen forests, secondary/moist deciduous forests showing different levels of degradation by man and plantations of teak, eucalypts and betelnut. It was found that the betelnut plantation and the evergreen/semievergreen forests had the least bird species diversity of H'= 2.58 and 2.61 respectively. The eucalypt and teak plantations had H'= 2.69 and 2-92 respectively. In the secondary/moist deciduous forests it ranged from 2.80-3.39. Despite the apparent increase in diversity in the man-modified vegetation types, it was found that there was a gradual displacement of the bird species composition from what was typical to the evergreen forests to those of more urban and scrubby habitats in these man-modified vegetation types. This was particularly so in the eucalypt plantation.