1 Impacts of land-use change on endemic avifauna on Makira, Solomon Islands: endemics 2 avoid monoculture 3 Tammy E. Davies1,*, Rohan H. Clarke2, John G. Ewen3, Ioan R.A. Fazey4, Nathalie Pettorelli3, 4 Will Cresswell1 5 1 University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9TH, UK 6 2 School of Biological Sciences, Clayton Campus, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia 7 3 Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4RYL, UK 8 4 School of the Environment, University of Dundee, Perth Road, Dundee, DD1 4HN, UK 9 * Corresponding author:
[email protected] 10 Tammy E Davies current affiliation: University of Victoria, School of Environmental Studies, Victoria, 11 BC V8W 3R4, Canada 12 13 Key words: biodiversity, cash crops, conservation, Melanesia, tropical forest 14 Running head: Impacts of land-use change on tropical avifauna 1 15 Abstract 16 Unprecedented rates of deforestation on tropical islands are threatening high numbers of endemic 17 species. More empirical evidence is needed to better understand the implications of land-use 18 change on biodiversity, and to guide conservation actions. We assessed the impacts of land-use 19 change on the lowland avifauna of the tropical island of Makira in the Solomon Islands. We 20 examined species richness and community assemblages, with a particular focus on endemism and 21 functional traits, to provide further insight into the ‘conservation value’ of the dominant land-use 22 types present on Makira (i.e. intact forest, secondary forest, food gardens, mixed cocoa plantations, 23 and monoculture cocoa plantations). We found species richness was similar across habitats, but 24 endemic species richness decreased as intensity of land use increased.