Highway noise decreases the abundance of an understory rainforest bird

ABSTRACT

Highways are structures that cause major impacts and threats to biodiversity. We analysed the effects of a highway on the abundance of the Rufous-capped Antthrush (Formicarius colma) in the stretch that intersects the Sooretama Biological Reserve, located in southeastern Brazil. Data were collected using the point-count census method, with points located on the forest edge near the highway, the forest edge near a pasture and random points in the interior of the forest area. Noise was recorded at each point in all areas and related to the abundance of antthrushes. Across habitat types, Rufous-capped Antthrushes were least abundant at the highway-edge, intermediate at the pasture-edge, and highest at the interior of the forest. Within habitat types, species abundance was highest in points 600 m away from the pasture but only in points 800 m away from the highway. The abundance of antthrushes was inversely correlated to noise, irrespective of habitat type (highway or pasture). These results suggest that the presence of the highway and the noise it produces are important threats to the Rufous-capped Antthrush, decreasing its abundance and possibly constraining movements across the highway. For a regionally threatened bird, these impacts could be significant for species viability.

KEYWORDS:

• Anthropic impact
• Atlantic forest
• Formicariidae
• Formicarius colma
• road impacts
• threatened bird

Acknowledgments

We thank the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBIO) for the permission to do this study in Sooretama Biological Reserve (SBR) and the entire team at the SBR for the logistical support and help with the campaigns carried out there. We are grateful to the photographer and researcher Leonardo Merçon (Instituto Últimos Refúgios) for helping and supporting the work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

This research was conducted according to the ethics committee of Universidade Vila Velha (Licence number 74/2009).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2023.2253837.

Data availabilty statement

All data supporting this study are permanently available in Mendeley Data, accessible through the following link: https://doi.org/10.17632/5rx5wt8ksh.1

Additional information

Funding

J.S.N. received a PhD scholarship and P.D. received Postdoctoral fellowship (Grant numbers: 88887.689860/2022-00 and 88887.469218/2019-00) from the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES). Fundação de Âmparo a Pesquisa e Inovação do Espírito Santo (FAPES, grant number 61901857/12) funded this study.