Relationship between configuration patterns of secondary nature and the bird community on a fine scale on Keihanna Hills

Abstract

We conducted vegetation and bird surveys on forests, farmlands, villages and so on, on Keihanna Hills, in order to test configuration patterns of landscape factors of secondary nature, and the relationship between these patterns of habitats and birds. As the results of the vegetation survey, we found that strong negative correlation existed between % rice paddy and % tree cover, and that when % tree cover was medium, mosaic structure was most complicated, and length of forest edge was longest. We made several regression analyses on bird species richness, with explanatory variables adopted from among vegetation variables. We found that % tree cover was important for total bird species richness per plot; however, species richness of non-forest bird species was negatively affected by % tree cover. We also conducted regression analyses on total individual numbers of several bird species per plot. We found that assessment of vegetation on a fine scale is effective for understanding landscape factors of secondary nature.