Research Article Species Composition of Tropical Understory Birds in Threatened East African Coastal Forests Based on Capture Data Robert B. Modest and Shombe N. Hassan Department of Wildlife Management, Sokoine University of Agriculture, P.O. Box 3073, Morogoro, Tanzania Correspondence should be addressed to Robert B. Modest; robertbya@yahoo.com Received 10 December 2015; Revised 17 February 2016; Accepted 3 March 2016 Academic Editor: Eugene S. Morton Copyright © 2016 R. B. Modest and S. N. Hassan. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. he East African coastal forests are subject of haphazard modiication following anthropogenic pressures including tree cutting and clearing for agriculture. hese activities, which are leading cause of habitat disturbance and species loss, are the major challenge in the management of sensitive wildlife species such as forest understory birds. his study investigated species composition of understory birds in the coastal forests of northeastern Tanzania to generate information for the management of the landscape and biodiversity in the area. Using mist nets, birds were trapped from core and edge habitats of representative forest patches. Trapped birds were classiied to species level and categorized into bird guilds based on their levels of forest dependence. It was found out that species richness was inluenced by forest patch size rather than level of habitat disturbance. Edge habitat was also found to be important in hosting higher number of forest understory birds, especially generalists—but this should be treated with caution because following habitat destruction that is ongoing in the study area, there is a danger of generalist wiping out specialist species due to competitive exclusion. Strict control measures to stop illegal tree cutting and agricultural activities near the forests were recommended for sustainable conservation of the understory birds in the forests. 1. Introduction On telling the status and complexity of forest ecosystems, understory bird species composition is of particular consid- eration [1–3]. he role of understory birds in shaping the forests ranges from seed dispersal [4, 5] to pollination as well as pest control [6], among others. However, persistence of most species of this ecological guild within forested habitat is determined by many factors, such as canopy cover and vege- tation stratiication [7–9], and microclimatic conditions [10– 12]. Unfortunately, in most of tropical landscapes, these vital factors which deine forest structures are subject of haphazard modiication following human actions such as man-made ires and unsustainable use of the forest resources—with ultimate negative consequences on bird diversity [11, 13–16]. Under this scenario, the role of understory birds in particular frugivores is indispensable mainly on dispersal of seeds to ill gaps that are let behind ater negative anthropogenic activities including uncontrolled harvest of forest lora—the process which helps in ecological succession and recovery of habitats [4, 5]. An additional, yet important role of forest understory birds can be noted within the agriculture sector, whereby loss or decline of understory insectivores owing to habitat degradation, for example, has obvious implications including crop loss as a result of increased abundance in invertebrate pests [1, 6]. he East African coastal forests are reknown for their high bird diversity and endemism [17, 18]. However, these forests face uncontrolled human livelihood issues that include tree cutting, charcoal burning, and habitat clearing for agriculture [15, 17, 19]. hese deleterious activities lead to habitat disturbance and fragmentation with eventual negative consequences on bird populations [4, 18]. Previous researches within the forests such as that of Hassan et al. [15] based on point count and that of Korfanta et al. [2] as well as Newmark [1] based on mist netting reported that deleterious anthropogenic activities were the major reason for the uneven distribution of avifauna species among the forests. Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Zoology Volume 2016, Article ID 1390364, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/1390364