Tolerance of frugivorous birds to habitat disturbance in a tropical cloud forest Laurens G.L. Gomes a,1 , Vicencio Oostra a,1 , Vincent Nijman b , Antoine M. Cleef a , Maarten Kappelle c,d, * a Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 94062, 1098 SM Amsterdam, The Netherlands b Oxford Brookes University, School of Social Sciences and Law, Department of Anthropology and Geography, OX3 0BP Oxford, UK c The Nature Conservancy, Mesoamerican and Caribbean Science Program, Apartado 230-1225, Plaza Mayor, San Jose ´, Costa Rica d Department of Geography, 304 Burchfiel Geography Building, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0925, USA ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 12 June 2007 Received in revised form 25 December 2007 Accepted 9 January 2008 Keywords: Avian community Frugivory Habitat degradation Forest restoration Neotropics Costa Rica ABSTRACT In view of the continued decline in tropical forest cover around the globe, forest restoration has become a key tool in tropical rainforest conservation. One of the main – and least expensive – restoration strategies is natural forest regeneration. By aiding forest seed influx both into disturbed and undisturbed habitats, frugivorous birds facilitate forest regenera- tion. This study focuses on the tolerance of a frugivorous bird community to anthropogenic habitat disturbance within the broader context of natural forest regeneration with conser- vation purposes. It was carried out in the tropical cloud forest of Costa Rica’s Talamanca Mountains. Bird community response and tolerance to habitat disturbance was assessed by comparing bird presence and densities along a disturbance gradient, ranging from open pastures to closed mature forests. Birds were censused along nine transects applying the variable width line transect procedure. Forty relevant frugivorous bird species were observed during 102 h of survey time. Densities were calculated for 33 species; nine species responded negatively to increasing level of disturbance and nine others positively. Results indicate that large frugivores are generally moderately tolerant to intermediate, but intoler- ant to severe habitat disturbance, and that tolerance is often higher for medium and small frugivores. It appears that moderately disturbed habitats in tropical cloud forests are highly suitable for restoration through natural regeneration aided by frugivorous birds. Due to a lack of large forest seed dispersers, severely disturbed habitats appear less suitable. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Deforestation and habitat degradation continue to form a major threat to Neotropical montane cloud forests (Kappelle and Brown, 2001). In Latin America, forest clearing has pri- marily been taking place for the purpose of cattle-ranching (Holl et al., 2000; Harvey et al., 2005). Short-term economic use of cleared lands is often followed by abandonment (Aide and Grau, 2004). This eventually gives rise to a patchy land- scape mosaic of grasslands, successional forests in different stages of recovery, and croplands (e.g., Buschbacher, 1986; Uhl et al., 1988; Aide et al., 1995; Kappelle and Jua ´ rez, 1994, 2006). In an effort to understand and facilitate reforestation processes, restoration ecology has increasingly received 0006-3207/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2008.01.007 * Corresponding author: Tel.: +506 220 2552x104; fax: +506 220 2551. E-mail addresses: lgomes@science.uva.nl (L.G.L. Gomes), v.oostra@biology.leidenuniv.nl (V. Oostra), vnijman@brookes.ac.uk (V. Nijman), cleef@science.uva.nl (A.M. Cleef), mkappelle@tnc.org (M. Kappelle). 1 These two authors contributed equally to this work. BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION 141 (2008) 860 – 871 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon