Richness, composition and spatial distribution of bird community on an urban forest fragment at Maringá, Northern Paraná State, Brazil- DOI: 10.4025/actascibiolsci.172

Abstract

Richness, composition and spatial distribution of birds were analyzed on an urban forest fragment of 47.3 ha at Maringá, Southern Brazil (23°25'S and 51°25W). Four habitats were categorized on this fragment: forest, forest edge, open areas and lagoon. The forest and forest edge were divided into three levels: understory (bellow 3 m), mid-levels (3-6 m) and canopy (above 6 m). A standard transect was ran throughout all pre-established habitats four times each month of January to December 2003, totaling 48 sampling days. A total of 86 bird species were registered on the forest fragment, being the insectivores and omnivores, respectively, the guilds with larger number of species. Most of the species was registered on no more than 25% of samplings. The forest was the habitat with largest species richness and largest percentage of species with occurrence frequency above of 75%. The mid-levels presented the largest species richness and the canopy the largest percentage of species with occurrence frequency above of 75%. It is pointed out the importance of conservation of the several urban forest fragments and the tree covering on Maringá, in order to minimize the isolation effects and to try to supply the needs of part of the bird community that possibly would not to persist on studied fragment whether there were not other near forest areas.