Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) in Bengaluru have found that logging and climate change pose a threat to montane birds.
Key points
- The team collected data from the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh, situated in the biodiversity hotspot of Eastern Himalayas and home to over 500 bird species.
- The team found that many bird species have started shifting to higher elevations due to rising temperatures.
- Logged forests have higher average temperatures and lower humidity than primary forests, thus hastening the transition.
- Birds that are smaller in size seem to colonise these logged forests better because they can tolerate higher temperatures while the density of larger bird species appears to be increasing in the primary forests.
- The team found that logging can lead to the loss of large-bodied, old, growth-dependent species, and decrease the overall biodiversity.
- Logged forests also have lower densities of foliage-dwelling insects, reducing the resource availability for the birds.
- Since large species have higher energy requirements, this disproportionately reduces the abundance of large species.
(Source: The Hindu)
