Avian responses to tourism in the biogeographically isolated high Córdoba Mountains, Argentina
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- 作者：Lisandro Heil ; Esteban Fernández-Juricic ; Daniel Renison ; Ana M. Cingolani and Daniel T. Blumstein
- 关键词：Endemic species ; Guild ; Human disturbance ; Mountainous ecosystem ; Recreational activities ; South America
- 刊名：Biodiversity and Conservation
- 出版年：2007
- 出版时间：April, 2007
- 年：2007
- 卷：16
- 期：4
- 页码：1009-1026
- 全文大小：245 KB
- 刊物类别：Biomedical and Life Sciences
- 刊物主题：Life Sciences
Evolutionary Biology
Plant Sciences
Tree Biology - 出版者：Springer Netherlands
- ISSN：1572-9710
文摘
Species do not respond identically to the presence of humans, and this may have consequences at higher-levels of ecological organization. We established bird transects on and off recreational trails in the high Córdoba Mountains of Argentina, a biogeographic island characterized by high levels of endemism, to examine the effect of human visitation at three different levels: (a) community (avian species richness and diversity), (b) guild (relative density of carnivores, granivores, insectivores, and omnivores), and (c) population (relative density of individual bird species). Human presence in the high Córdoba Mountains decreased avian species richness and diversity, and reduced insectivorous relative density, but we did not detect significant effects on granivores, omnivores, and carnivores. At the population level, 6 of 28 species were negatively affected by human visitation; four of these species are of conservation concern. Our results show negative responses to recreationists at multiple levels (e.g., reductions in density, displacement of species from highly visited areas), which may be related to spatial and temporal access to suitable resources, physical disturbance or species-specific tolerance thresholds. Our study area had lower levels of human visitation relative to other protected areas in the Northern Hemisphere, which raises the issue of whether this kind of biogeographically isolated habitat may be too fragile to sustain increasing levels of tourism.