Bird Species Composition in Ayer Hitam Forest, Puchong ...psasir.upm.edu.my/3745/1/Bird_Species_Composition_in_Ayer_Hitam_Forest... · Kajian ini tertumpu pada komposisi spesies burung
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ABSTRAKKajian ini tertumpu pada komposisi spesies burung di Hutan Ayer Hitam, Puchong, Selangor. Hutan ini ialahhutan sekunder tanah pamah yang terasing dan telah dibalak antara tahun 1936 hingga 1954. Dua kaedahtelah digunakan untuk menyiasat komposisi burung di kawasan ini iaitu Penjaringan Kabut dan PensampelanJarakJauh-Pengiraan Titik. Keputusan menunjukkan bahawa sejumlah 38 famili yang merangkumi 160 spesiesburung telah direkodkan. Tiga famili yang paling besar yang mewakili 23.5 peratus daripada keseluruhanspesies ialah Timaliidae, Cuculidae dan Pycnonotidae. Bilangan individu yang paling kerap direkodkantergolong dalam famili Pycnonotidae. Hutan ini dikuasai oleh kumpulan insektivor/frugivor di manakebanyakannya diwakili oleh spesies sekunder jajah. Sesetengah spesies enggang (contoh Buceros rhinoceros) danburung rimba (contoh Pomatorhinus montanus) yang kebiasaannya dijumpai di hutan primer tidak hadir.Keputusan ini juga mencadangkan bahawa komposisi famili dan struktur trophik burung di Hutan Ayer Hitamadalah sebanding dengan mereka yang berada di kawasan hutan simpan yang lain. Walau bagaimanapun,ketidakhadiran banyak spesies hutan primer mencadangkan bahawa hutan ini masih di dalam Prosespemulihan. Adalah direkomenkan supaya sebahagian besar hutan ini dibiarkan tanpa sebarang gangguanuntuk menghalang habitat hidupan liar yang semakin sedikit ini daripada terns dimusnahkan dan untukmembenarkan komposisi spesies hidupan liar kembali kepada keadaan asal.
ABSTRACTThis study focused on the avian species composition in Ayer Hitam Forest, Puchong, Selangor. The forest is anisolated secondary lowland forest and was logged between 1936 to 1954. Two methods were used to examine thecomposition of birds in the area namely l7y Mist-netting and Distance Sampling-Point Count. Results indicatedthat a total of 38 families which comprised of 160 species of birds have been recorded. The three biggest familiesthat represent about 23.5 percent of the total species are Timaliidae, Cuculidae and Pycnonotidae. The mostcommon individuals recorded belong to the family Pycnonotidae. The forest is dominated l7y insectivore/frugivoregroup which is represented l7y mainly colonising secondary species. Certain species of hornbills (e.g. Bucerosrhinoceros) and babblers (e.g. Pomatorhinus montanus) that are normally found in primary forest are absent.These results suggested that the composition offamilies and trophic structures of birds in Ayer Hitam Forest Reserveare comparable with those at other forest reserve areas. However, the absence of many primary forest speciessuggested that the forest is still under recovering process. It is recommended that the major part of the forest is leftundisturbed to prevent the few remaining wildlife habitats from further destruction and to allow the wildlife speciescomposition to return to the original condition.
INTRODUCTION
Most wildlife in the tropic depends on the forestfor their existence. In Malaysia, almost 90 percentof the birds inhabit tropical forest (Wells 1988).The tropical forest is the most diverse ecosystem
and it provides the basic necessltles such ascover, refugia, feeding and breeding habitats forthe birds to survive and reproduce.
Unfortunately, the size of undisturbedprimary tropical rain forest is shrinking at a
MOHAMED ZAKARlA and ABDUL RAHIM
rapid rate. A large proportion of the forestedareas remaining are either logged-over ordegraded forests (secondary forests). As aconsequence, the size of the secondary forests isexpanding. Furthermore, previous studies haveshown that most species particularly birds areadversely affected in disturbed habitats Oohns1986, 1987, 1988, 1989; Zakaria and Nordin1998, Zakaria and Franci, in press). It istherefore crucial for us to examine not only theeffects of habitat disturbance on the populationof wildlife but also to understand their recoveryprocesses.
Many questions related to changes in wildlifespecies in secondary forest need to be answered.Does the diversity of wildlife in secondary forestremain the same as that in primary forest? Ifnot, what are the changes occuring to the speciescomposition? Does the abundance of each speciesin secondary forest remain the same as that inprimary forest? If not, which species increase ordecrease in secondary forest? Which species arethe most adversely affected and can be used asindicator species? How long does it take forthem to recover? These are a few questions thatneed to be answered in order to understand thedynamic of wildlife population in tropical forest.
Before answers of the above questions arefound, much preliminary works need to be done.In this study, the composition of bird species inthe isolated secondary forest ofAyer Hitam ForestReserve is examined. The study is an on goinglong-term study and the results presented hereare preliminary. The ultimate aim is to assesswhether the forest-dependent bird speciesparticularly those that are adversely affected canrecover or survive in secondary forest. Theinformation obtained is useful in understandingand protecting wildlife species in the forest.
STUDY AREA AND METHODOLOGY
The study was conducted in the 1248ha of AyerHitam Forest, Puchong, Selangor. The area islocated at about 3°00.00'N to 3°02.20'N and101°37.90'E to 101°40.00'E, approximately 20kilometers southwest of Kuala Lumpur. This isan isolated lowland dipterocarp forest and wasselectively logged. The forest is divided into sixcompartments (Compartments 1, 2, 12, 13, 14and 15), and each compartment was logged indifferent years. The earliest logging history wasin 1936 and the latest was in 1954. The effects oflogging are most severe in Compartment 15.
The forest in Compartments 1, 13 and 14 areonly slightly damaged and many big timberspecies are still present.
The results presented here were based on astudy conducted in all the compartments withinthe forest reserve. At this stage, only thecomposition of species was presented anddiscussed. No attempts were made to obtain thedensi ty of species since the number ofobservations recorded was still very small.
Two survey methods were implemented inthis study. To assess mainly the canopy species,the Distance Sampling-Point Count method wasused (Buckland et al. 1993). For this method,ten transect lines, each of at least 500 meters inlength has been built at random. Each line waswalked at least 3 times. The transects were builtin such a way to represent the whole area of theforest. All species seen and heard were recorded.
To assess the understorey species, mistnetting method was used. The mist-nets usedwere of size 14m in length and 3m in width withthe mesh size of lcm. Since the main objectiveis to record all species present in the area, thenets were placed in as many habitats (lowland,ridge, riverine areas, hill top and swampy areas)as possible. They were placed at random in eachof the habitat and were checked every threehours. The netting activities were started early inthe morning (between 6:00 -7:00am) and endedlate in the evening (6:30 - 7:00pm). A total of11,000 net-hours have been conducted duringthe study period between January to July 1998.All birds caught were identified, tagged andreleased at the place where they were caught.
RESULTS
The results show that a total of 160 species ofbirds have been recorded which represented 38families (see Appendix). The three largestfamilies were Timaliidae (13 Babbler species),Cuculidae (12 Cuckoo species) and Pycnonotidae(12 Bulbul species) (Table 1). The smallestfamilies that were represented by only one speciesincluded Raillidae, Podargidae and Coraciidae.
To examine the different assemblages ofbirds present in the area, the species recordedwas categorised into trophic levels (Karr 1980,
ordin and Zakaria 1997, Wong 1986; Table 2).Results clearly indicated that insect-eating birds(insectivores) representing the highest numberof species (73 species), followed by birds that eatinsects and fruits (insectivores/frugivores; 40
BIRD SPECIES COMPOSITIO AYER HITAM FOREST, PUCHO G, SELANGOR
species) and birds that eat small vertebrates(carnivores; 19 species). The insectivores weremainly flycatcher and babbler species. Thesmallest trophic group was insectivore/carnivore/frugivore and was represented by mainlyhornbills.
DISCUSSION
The Ayer Hitam Forest (AHFR) has beenlogged several times and the logging activitieswere terminated in the 70's. Although this is asecondary forest, it is still very rich of birdspecies. Even many other large primary forestscontain only slightly higher number of species
TABLE 1umber of bird species recorded for each family
The classification of birds was partly extracted fromKarr (1980) and Wong (1986) and reevaluated according to personal observations (Zakaria 1994).
than in the secondary forest of AHFR. Forexample in the primary forest of Sungai TekamForest Reserve, Pahang, the number of speciesrecorded was 225 species while in the loggedforest was 181 species Oohns 1989). Moreover,in the primary and logged forests of DIuSegama Forest Reserve, Sabah, the number ofspecies obtained was 222 and 188 species,respectively (Nordin and Zakaria 1997).However, we should keep in mind that thespecies number might be the same but thespecies composition in logged and unloggedforests might be different (Zakaria and Francis,in press).
In this study the number of species recordedwas 160. Many of the species recorded arenormally found in not only primary but alsosecondary forests. In fact, many of them areconsidered common species and can be foundelsewhere. The forest has not been thoroughlysurveyed particularly in the north part. It isexpected that at least another 20 species to berecorded. Many of the species that were notrecorded are the primary forest species. This wasreflected by the absence of many primary forestspecies such as Rhinocerous Hornbills (Bucerosrhinoceros) and a few species of babblers (e.g.Pomatorhinus montanus, Stachyris poliocephala andStachyris leucotis). This suggested that the forestis still in the process of recovery. Twenty yearsafter logging may not be sufficient for the forestto return to the original condition (Wong 1985).Although there are primary forest species in theforest, their numbers are lesser than thosenormally present in primary forest.
The diversity of families recorded is alsocomparable to other primary forest areas. Almostall of the families recorded in other primaryforest areas are also found here. Bird assemblagesaccording to the trophic structures also suggestedthat most of the compositions of the trophicgroups are similar to other primary forestreserves. The only major difference is for thetrophic insectivore/frugivore. In most primaryforests, the insectivore/frugivore group isnormally represented by fewer species and isreplaced by the insectivore group (Zakaria and
ordin 1998). The higher number ofinsectivore/frugivore species is mainlycontributed by the bulbul species. They areknown as colonising secondary species and preferto inhabit logged forest.
Other than bulbul species, groups ofsunbirds and spiderhunters are also abundant inthe forest. These species are especially abundantat the southern region of the forest. The damageto this region seems to be quite extensive. Thearea is dominated with secondary plant speciessuch as Macaranga. There are very few primarytree species remained and most of them are stillsmall. This could be the reason why there areabundant ofbulbuls, sunbirds and spiderhunterswhich prefer the easily available small fruits andflower nectars of secondary plants (Zakaria and
ordin 1998).At present, the total size of the forest
(including the surrounding areas) is still largebut it is shrinking at a very rapid rate andeventually only the 1248ha of AHFR will be leftdue to development of the surrounding areas.Thus, all of the birds from the affected areaswill have to move into the permanent forestreserve. It is not known whether the remainingsmall forest reserve will be able to maintain theincreasing number of birds. However, it isexpected that the limited food and coverresources will affect the birds negatively (Zakariaand Nordin 1998). Thus, it is highlyrecommended that the forest reserve beprotected from further disturbance. By doingthis it is hoped that the forest and the birds canrecover faster to their original state and preventfurther species disappearance from occurring(Chapman and Chapman 1995, 1996).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe would like to thank all the people particularlythe undergraduate students of wildlife
who had assisted us in the data collection in thefield. The research is funded by the IRPA fund08-02-04-0051.
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BIRD SPECIES COMPOSITION IN AYER HITAM FOREST, PUCHONG, SELANGOR
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