Land use factors determining occurrence of Red-necked Spurfowl (Pternistis afer) in the Drakensberg Midlands, South Africa
2014
Ramesh, Tharmalingam | Downs, Colleen T.
Conservation of forest associated birds depends on appropriate prediction of habitat change effects on their distribution patterns. We investigated a variety of land use gradients in an attempt to determine which factors influence site occupancy and detection of Red-necked Spurfowl (Pternistis afer) on farmland in the Drakensberg Midlands, South Africa. We used presence/absence data from 44 camera traps to estimate proportion of area occupied by the study species during October 2012–January 2013. Average occupancy rate of Red-necked Spurfowl was 0.42 ± 0.10 with a low detection probability 0.29 ± 0.04. Commercial forestry plantation influenced their presence positively while the index of human abundance negatively influenced the proportion of area occupied. Model selection indicated that cropland cultivation area had a strong negative effect on the detection probability of Red-necked Spurfowl while availability of indigenous forest patch and natural grassland influenced their detection positively. In the absence less presence of natural forest, commercial plantation forestry might have provided the next best possible habitat for this forest associated species where indigenous forest patches covering a small part of the landscape have extensively fragmented. These findings detailed the influence of land use variables as fragmentation and conversion of indigenous forest and grassland ecosystems into agricultural and human dominated areas affect the distribution of species that are highly selective towards forested habitats.
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