Research Article |
Corresponding author: José Guerrero-Casado ( guerrero.casado@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Ana Maria Leal-Zanchet
© 2021 José Guerrero-Casado, José Manuel Seoane, Nikolay Aguirre, Jeronimo Torres-Porras.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Guerrero-Casado J, Seoane JM, Aguirre N, Torres-Porras J (2021) Success in conserving the bird diversity in tropical forests through private protected areas in Western Ecuador. Neotropical Biology and Conservation 16(2): 351-367. https://doi.org/10.3897/neotropical.16.e63414
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Private protected areas have recently attained more importance at a worldwide level as regards nature conservation. Particularly, the specific region of Western Ecuador receives hardly any protection from the State, and private reserves could, therefore, be a suitable tool to ensure the preservation of its forests and their associated wildlife biodiversity. In this work, we compare the bird species richness between private reserves and public protected areas (managed by the State) located in this region. We also show a checklist of bird species found in the Buenaventura Reserve, a private reserve located in south-western Ecuador. Our comparison shows that smaller private reserves may harbour a similar number of bird species than larger protected areas managed by the state, and they have a higher number of bird species per area. In particular, a total of 233 different bird species were registered in Buenaventura, which were distributed in 16 orders and 42 families. Three species were classified as endangered at an international level: El Oro Parakeet (Pyrrhura orcesi), El Oro Tapaculo (Scytalopus robbinsi), and the Grey-backed Hawk (Pseudastur occidentalis), and another three at a national level: the Long-wattled Umbrellabird (Cephalopterus penduliger), the Slaty-winged Foliage-gleaner (Philydor fuscipenne), and the White-vented Plumeleteer (Chalybura buffonii). Therefore, private reserves can be appreciated as a suitable conservation tool for bird conservation, and they should not be undervalued because of their smaller size. Buenaventura Reserve is a good example of how private reserves are extremely important in fragmented landscapes, as is the case with tropical forests in Western Ecuador.
Avian diversity, biodiversity conservation, cloud forest, private reserves, protected areas, species richness, wildlife conservation
A private protected area (hereafter PPA) is a protected area under private governance, managed by a variety of private actors, such as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), commercial companies, or researcher entities with the aim to achieve biodiversity conservation objectives (
Nevertheless, PPAs can be an extremely useful tool to achieve global conservation goals, because public protected areas (PAs) are insufficient to reduce the global biodiversity crisis (
This is the case in Ecuador, where private protected areas are considered a subsystem of the National Protected Areas Network (Sistema Nacional de Áreas Protegidas, SNAP, in Spanish), although some of them are not officially included in this national network (
This strip is, therefore, of particular importance in Western Ecuador (
The location of the public protected areas (PA-blue spots) and private protected areas (PPA-green spots) in Western Ecuador used in this study to compare bird species richness between them. The location of the Buenaventura Reserve in Ecuador is illustrated by a red spot. The figure on the right shows the limits of Buenaventura Reserve (red line), showing the remaining native forests (green polygons), obtained from the land use cover of the Environment Ministry of Ecuador in 2018 (available at http://ide.ambiente.gob.ec/mapainteractivo/).
Data concerning bird species richness were collected in PAs and PPAs (see below) located in Western Ecuador, including the Coastal Region, the Western slope of the Andes, and the southern region of Ecuador (Fig.
The fieldwork was performed in the Buenaventura Reserve, which is located on the western slope of the Ecuadorian Andes in the south of the country, in the province of El Oro (Fig.
The number of bird species recorded in PAs and PPAs located in Western Ecuador was sought in scientific literature, reports and in the Important Bird Areas (IBAs) webpage (http://datazone.birdlife.org). Although the methodology and sampling can vary among places, this rough comparison is useful to compare the avian diversity of PPAs and PAs. We collected literature values for the avian species richness of 8 PAs (including a bird census performed in Cerro San Sebastian in Machalilla National Park; –
Moreover, we obtained the trigger species list of six Important Bird Areas (IBAs) almost fully located in protected areas to compare these bird trigger species in relation to the protected area size and the international threat category according to the IUCN Red List; three of these IBAs overlap with PAs (codes EC008, EC017, and EC037) and three overlap with PPAs (codes EC012, EC026 and EC071) (
A bird census in the Buenaventura Reserve was performed by the same two people (JTP and JMS), who identified the birds using binoculars and a camera. Birds were identified on the basis of the authors’ experience and checked using field guides of birds of Ecuador (
Three different methodologies were combined with the aim of registering as many species as possible. Firstly, five different fixed transects of 1-km in length were repeated on the four dates in question, and birds were recorded along the transects and for 10 minutes at 4 fixed points separated by 200 m (
We evaluated the sampling effort of the bird census performed in Buenaventura by employing a species accumulation curve. The estimated species richness was, meanwhile, estimated on the basis of the Chao 1 richness estimators in EstimateS 9.1 (
The fourteen PPAs covered an area of 43,818 ha (mean = 3,129 ha, min 150 – max 10,200 ha), whereas the eight PAs covered an area of 446,299 ha (mean = 47,384 ha, min 1950 – max 243,683 ha). The PPAs have a median of 214 bird species (min 43 – max 401) and 13.52 bird species richness per 100 ha, whereas PAs have a median value of 186 (min 132 – max 186) and 2.59, respectively (Fig.
Total bird species richness and the bird species per 100 ha in 22 different places in Western Ecuador. Green = private protected areas (PPA); blue = public protected areas (PA) including in the PANE; red = Buenaventura Reserve according to the data obtained in this study. References: Cotacahi-Cayapas, Pacoche, El Pampilar, Arenillas and Samama Mumbes – http://areasprotegidas.ambiente.gob.ec; Jama Coaque – https://earthmind.org; Masphi – https://www.mashpilodge.com; Machalilla, El Tundo and Milpe – http://datazone.birdlife.org; Cerro San Sebastián –
Concerning the trigger species of the IBAs, the three selected PAs harbour 97 different bird species in 525,269 ha, whereas the three PPAs harbour 52 different bird species in 8,667 ha, which means 0.018 and 0.599 bird species/100 ha respectively. The PAs had 21 different species (representing the 24.65% of their trigger species) included in one of the threat categories (CR+EN+VU), whereas the PPAs had 16 species representing the 30.77% of their trigger species. Six trigger species are located in the three IBAs-PPAs but not in IBAs-PAs: Pyrrhura orcesi, Scytalopus robbinsi, Ara ambiguus, Basileuterus trifasciatus, Cyanocorax mystacalis and Glaucidium nubicola.
After pooling all the methodologies together, a total of 2,603 encounters, 5,635 individuals and 233 different species were recorded during the fieldwork in Buenaventura Reserve (see Suppl. material
Of the 233 species, 222 were recorded during the transects (repeated and non-repeated transects), 10 species were observed at the artificial nectar feeders, and 93 species were observed as a result of casual encounters (Fig.
A large proportion (84.9%) of the species were classified as Least Concern (LC), and only 5.4% were classified as threatened (VU and EN). The three species classified as endangered (EN) according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species were El Oro Parakeet (Pyrrhura orcesi), El Oro Tapaculo (Scytalopus robbinsi) and the Grey-backed Hawk (Pseudastur occidentalis). Three species are considered endangered at a national level, such as the Long-wattled Umbrellabird (Cephalopterus penduliger), the Slaty-winged Foliage-gleaner (Philydor fuscipenne), and the White-vented Plumeleteer (Chalybura buffonii).
Our results show that despite the smaller size of PPAs in Western Ecuador (150–10,200 ha), they can harbour a similar number of bird species to larger PAs (up to 243,000 ha) in the same area (Fig.
Moreover, the analysis of the trigger species of the six selected IBAs showed that PPAs concentrated a greater number of key species in smaller areas. These results highlight the importance of private reserves for wildlife conservation, and their pivotal role, particularly in under-represented areas and for species with a restricted range (
Our results further show a high diversity of birds in the Buenaventura Reserve, where a high diversity of species, families and orders were observed. The combinations of the three sampling methodologies employed herein can be considered suitable to record most bird species. As Fig.
In Buenaventura, several threatened species and other species with a restricted distribution range were registered. For instance, the Buenaventura Reserve is the only protected area within the distribution range of two endemic and endangered species: El Oro Parakeet (Pyrrhura orcesi) and El Oro Tapaculo (Scytalopus robbinsi). Both species are endemic to the Tumbes region of Ecuador, whose better-preserved populations are found in this reserve (
Finally, climate change is expected to cause negative alterations in evergreen mountain forests, and adapting to these changes will, therefore, require a network of well-conserved areas (
In conclusion, when compared to the larger surface of protected areas of the national system managed by the State, private protected areas with a smaller surface can harbour an important number of bird species. Therefore, private reserves are a suitable management tool with which to complement the protected areas managed by the State, thus making it possible to create a greater network of protected areas with high biodiversity that could, in the future, act as the principal areas for an ecological corridor. In this work we have particularly shown that the Buenaventura Reserve, a private reserve managed by an NGO, has a very high number of bird species, some of which are endangered and are rarely recorded in south-western Ecuador, thus highlighting the importance of Buenaventura Reserve with regards to wildlife conservation in south-western Ecuador.
The authors are grateful to the Prometeo Project of the Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, Republic of Ecuador for funding this project. We would like to thank the facilities extended by the staff of the Buenaventura Reserve of the Jocotoco Foundation, especially Leovigildo Cabrera, the National University of Loja and the Technical University of Machala. Our thanks also go to Marina Garrido for her help in preparing the database. José Guerrero-Casado is currently supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad de la Junta de Andalucía (project reference: 1264483-R).
Appendix S1
Data type: table
Explanation note: List of bird species.