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Turnovers in Species Composition of Avian Communities in Contiguous Riparian Habitats
Author(s) -
Rice J.,
Ohmart R. D.,
Anderson B. W.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.2307/1937499
Subject(s) - habitat , riparian zone , transect , ecology , seral community , competition (biology) , geography , abundance (ecology) , vegetation (pathology) , biology , medicine , pathology
We examined 4 yr of intensive census records for 72 line transects in contiguous riparian vegetation. Across all transects the number of bird species differing between pairs of successive years followed a random distribution. For any season, from one—quarter to over one—third of the species differed. There were weak tendencies for specific plant communities and seral stages to have high or low turnover rates. The proportion of avian species in a community changing between years was lower in summer than in other seasons but was similar between years for any specific season. Locally breeding species showed slightly more stable communities than did nonlocally breeding species. These high turnover rates in bird community composition between years bring into question assumption underlying current theories of avian habitat selection, as well as assumptions essential when competition theory is used as the framework to account for community organization. Furthermore, there are substantial empirical similarities between these species turnovers in contiguous habitats and species turnovers on island and island—like patches of habitat.