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First Assessment of Bird Diversity in the UNESCO Sheka Forest Biosphere

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First Assessment of Bird Diversity in the UNESCO Sheka Forest Biosphere PLATINUM The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is dedicated to building evidence for conservaton globally by publishing peer-reviewed artcles online OPEN ACCESS every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All artcles published in JoTT are registered under Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License unless otherwise mentoned. JoTT allows allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of artcles in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Communication First assessment of bird diversity in the UNESCO Sheka Forest Biosphere Reserve, southwestern Ethiopia: species richness, distribution and potential for avian conservation Matas Van Opstal, Bernard Oosterlynck, Million Belay, Jesse Erens & Mathias De Beenhouwer 26 May 2019 | Vol. 11 | No. 7 | Pages: 13850–13867 DOI: 10.11609/jot.4726.11.7.13850-13867 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies, and Guidelines visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. The journal, the publisher, the host, and the part- Publisher & Host ners are not responsible for the accuracy of the politcal boundaries shown in the maps by the authors. Partner Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 May 2019 | 11(7): 13850–13867 First assessment of bird diversity in the UNESCO Sheka Forest Communication Biosphere Reserve, southwestern Ethiopia: species richness, ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) distribution and potential for avian conservation ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Matas Van Opstal 1 , Bernard Oosterlynck 2 , Million Belay 3 , Jesse Erens 4 & PLATINUM Mathias De Beenhouwer 5 OPEN ACCESS 1,2,4,5 Biodiversity Inventory for Conservaton (BINCO) vzw, Walmersumstraat 44, 3380 Glabbeek, Belgium. 3 MELCA-Ethiopa, P.O. Box: 1519 Code 1250 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 5 Plant Conservaton and Populaton Biology, Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 31, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium. 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected], 5 [email protected] Abstract: The Sheka Zone in southwestern Ethiopia is covered by some of the largest remaining forests in the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot. Owing to the rich biodiversity and a high degree of endemism, it was declared as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 2012 and is considered a Key Biodiversity Area. Detailed knowledge on species diversity and distributon in the reserve is, however, severely limited. From February to April 2016, an assessment of the bird diversity and distributon in the reserve was made for the frst tme through point count transects, camera-trap recordings and opportunistc observatons. In total, 244 bird species were identfed, of which 19% was only found within the reserve’s designated protected zones. Our study indicates a remarkable bird species richness across the diferent habitats in Sheka Forest Biosphere Reserve and can be used as a baseline for future monitoring studies and conservaton planning. Keywords: Avifauna, Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot, habitat occupaton, Horn of Africa, inventory, IUCN. DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4726.11.7.13850-13867 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:A3A5AE48-AC9B-4173-B63F-87D2921E2791 Editor: Reuven Yosef, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Eilat, Israel. Date of publicaton: 26 May 2019 (online & print) Manuscript details: #4726 | Received 25 November 2018 | Finally accepted 04 May 2019 Citaton: Van Opstal, M., B. Oosterlynck, M. Belay, J. Erens & M. De Beenhouwer (2019). First assessment of bird diversity in the UNESCO Sheka Forest Biosphere Reserve, southwestern Ethiopia: species richness, distributon and potental for avian conservaton. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(7): 13850–13867. htps://doi. org/10.11609/jot.4726.11.7.13850-13867 Copyright: © Van Opstal et al. 2019. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: CEPF (Critcal Ecosystem Partnership Fund). Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Author Details: Mattias Van Opstal is an ornitologist and holds a master in Bio-Science engineering. He is an actve member of BINCO. He currently works as research associate at ILVO (Insttute for agriculture and fsheries) where he leads diferent marine research projects. Bernard Oosterlynck is Biologist, actve as biodiversity survey coordinator for BINCO during feldwork in Ethiopia. Specialised in agricultural impact on biodiversity of avifauna and big mammals in Africa. Jesse Erens is a herpetologist and currently a PhD fellow at Ghent University working on amphibian conservaton. Million Belay is the founder of MELCA-Ethiopia and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). He is an expert and advocate for forestry conservaton, resilience, indigenous livelihoods and food and seed sovereignty. Dr. Matthias De Beenhouwer is a forest ecologist, working as a project manager on reforestaton projects for the ngo WeForest. He holds a PhD on Afromontane cofee forestry from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He is specialized in forestry systems and has 7 years of experience working in Ethiopia and Southern Africa. He also has experience with standardized biodiversity assessment, mostly of plant and vertebrate taxa. Author Contributon: MDB and MB designed the study, MVO, BO, JE and MDB collected the data, BO and MDB analysed the data. MVO, JE and MDB wrote the manuscript. Acknowledgements: We greatly acknowledge the CEPF (Critcal Ecosystem Partnership Fund, Grant No. S14-272) and the KNBV (Royal Botanical Society of The Netherlands) for fnancially supportng this project. BirdLife Internatonal, IUCN and EWNHS are acknowledged for logistc support, and we are grateful to the EWCA for research permission. We thank A. Shaweno and all staf of MELCA-Ethiopia for their contnued support, hospitality and invaluable help during the feldwork, as well as all trainees who helped us collectng data: W. Adinew, M. Chegito, B. Ayasho, B. Kidane and G. Kassahun. Furthermore, we would like to express our grattude to all clan leaders and local guides for welcoming us on their lands and providing guidance in the feld. We also thank Y. Dellelegn and S. Jones for their valuable comments on bird identfcatons. 13850 Bird diversity in UNESCO Sheka Forest Biosphere Reserve, Ethiopia Van Opstal et al. INTRODUCTION Biodiversity and conservaton research has seen a recent increase in southwestern Ethiopia, mainly in Ethiopia is recognized among the 35 most biodiverse relaton to agroforestry (e.g., Hundera et al. 2013; Tadesse regions in the world and its biodiversity is renowned et al. 2014); however, biodiversity studies in remote for its high percentage of endemism. The highlands in forest regions such as Sheka have been very limited the southwest, where most of the larger forest tracts thus far, despite the recogniton as a UNESCO biosphere remain, are part of the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity reserve and strong ongoing habitat degradaton. Hotspot (Mitermeier et al. 2011). Natural habitats are Detailed insights in the diversity, distributon and highly diverse in this region, where the forest structure abundance of species in the area are hardly available. changes along a large elevaton gradient (Friis 1992), with Likewise, informaton on the bird diversity in Sheka forest moist evergreen Afromontane rainforests presentng the is very scarce, but limited research done in the broader dominant vegetaton type, but also including bamboo region (e.g., Woldegeorgis & Wube 2012) provides clear forests and transitonal rainforests leading down to indicatons for a large bird species diversity in remaining semi-deciduous forests at lower alttudes. In most forest tracts of southwestern Ethiopia. Here, we present areas, the forests are interspersed with wetlands or, at a frst comprehensive inventory of the bird diversity in higher alttude, moorlands. Ethiopian natural forests Sheka Forest Biosphere Reserve, discuss our observatons are however rapidly disappearing (Dessie & Kleman in relaton to the delineated management zones, and 2007; Reusing 2000), with approximately 11.4% or highlight the biosphere reserve as an understudied yet 12,499,000ha of total forest cover lef (FAO 2015). highly valuable area for bird conservaton and contnued The Sheka Zone in southwestern Ethiopia stll biodiversity studies. harbors some of the largest remaining Afromontane forests in the country (>100,000ha). Nevertheless, the combinaton of a rising populaton, ongoing land- MATERIALS AND METHODS allocaton to agricultural investors and a lack of land- use planning are increasing pressure on the remaining From Masha (around 7.7490N & 35.4710E; ca. natural habitats. As such, the deforestaton rate within 2,250m), the
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