Effects of the establishment of large-scale teak plantations on bird assemblages in Kilombero Valley, Tanzania

The trend of natural land use changes is inevitable following persistent global population increase and demand for wood products. To satisfy these demands, large exotic plantations such as teaks, characterized by simple structure, intensive management activities, and poor in diversity have been favored. However, monitoring using biodiversity indicators such as birds can improve strategies developed to conserve biodiversity in these plantations. This study hypothesized that natural remnants around the teak plantations will have higher bird species composition and diversity than the plantations. Bird surveys were conducted using the point count method with three (3) point count stations of 50 m radius, distanced 100 m from the edge of the habitat and 300 m apart from each other. One-way ANOVA was performed to compare the means of bird species parameters within each habitat and between vegetation types. Sorenson’s coefficient was equally calculated between pairs of habitats to assess their similarity. The results showed that natural remnants and teak plantations had 39% similarity in bird species recorded. However, natural remnants had higher bird abundance (806) and species richness (92) compared to teak plantations which had 450 bird abundance from 53 species and 23 families. Also, natural remnants had significantly higher (p  0.05) families and species diversity of birds than teak plantations. Richer species richness and diversity in natural remnants necessitates the importance of retaining and conserving natural vegetation around large-scale teak plantations. Natural remnants act as a refuge for some non-generalist bird species that can rarely survive in plantations.