Characterization of the birdscape of a collaboratively managed Indigenous and Community Conserved Area in Hawai‘i: What is the potential for increasing native bird biodiversity?
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2025-05-07
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Indigenous resource management practices increase habitat heterogeneity, and thus may contribute to species biodiversity while simultaneously achieving other social-ecological goals such as food production, but few if any studies to date have evaluated effects on avian biodiversity. Small patches of restored habitat may be of particular importance on islands where species historically had smaller ranges due to land area constraints. Due to factors introduced in the last few centuries, in the Hawaiian Islands lowland habitats are largely devoid of native passerines due to disease, mammalian predators, and habitat loss. In addition, native seabirds, waterbirds, and shorebirds occur in relatively small patches of suitable habitat due to impacts from invasive predators and the historical clearing of native vegetation for plantation agriculture and urban development. Given the lack of native birds in heavily human-modified areas of the Hawaiian Islands, there is a need to assess the occurrence of native birds in these landscapes, and the potential for improving native bird biodiversity with Indigenous Resource Management (IRM) practices. We utilized monthly point counts over two years to characterize the avian communities at sites within the He‘eia National Estuarine Research Reserve on the island of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, where stewards engage in restoration of biocultural conservation practices and relationships. Our study found a higher abundance of native and endangered waterbirds and shorebirds in areas where biocultural restoration had been initiated, and few if any native birds in unrestored areas. Very few native seabirds and no native forest birds were detected indicating that additional targeted actions such as disease control, removal of invasive predators, and restoration of preferred habitat may be necessary to enable recolonization by these. Our results are consistent with other studies suggesting that even small patches of heterogenous landscapes managed under IRM practices are important contributions toward improving native bird biodiversity.
Description
1) Point count data of avian species in various habitat types within Heʻeia NERR on Oʻahu Hawaiʻi. Data were collected from September 2019-July 2020.
2) R code for analysis of point count data.
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Oahu, Hawaii
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