Implications of climate change for Malaysian tropical montane bird communities discernible over a 14-years interval

Abstract

Tropical montane ecosystems are vulnerable to multiple threats, and severe ecological impact on such systems has been documented. However, trends for local montane biodiversity are often varied. Such discrepancy underscores the need to parse the spatial and temporal dynamic of each habitat type within a montane landscape in terms of their species richness, species turnover rate, and relative abundance. We studied species richness and composition of two tropical montane bird communities at two localities in Peninsular Malaysia in 2002-03 and 2016-17. The habitat types sampled at each locality represent a disturbance gradient within a montane landscape. While the number of species generally increased along the disturbance gradient, all study sites (bar tea plantation) had the same or fewer species observed in 2016-17. At the community level observed from the two time periods, Fraser’s Hill – where development has been absent since 1920s – had a decrease in species richness; and a higher proportion of species with a decline in their relative abundance, compared to the more disturbed landscape in Cameron Highlands. Both the number of species lost and the number of species gained also varied considerably between the two communities. Our results suggest that climate change is a likely factor in negatively impacting the montane bird communities in Peninsular Malaysia, and highlight the need to monitor the temporal dynamic in the composition of local communities.

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ORCID for Kelvin S.-H. Peh: orcid.org/0000-0002-2921-1341

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