DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Scaling up From Individual Behavior to Composition of Communities in Tropical Forest Remnants

栖息地破碎化是指大面积的连续栖息地被分割成较小的块（即“栖息地岛”或“斑块”）的过程，通常是由于人类活动。 了解为什么有些物种是不容忍的栖息地破碎化，从孤立的补丁消失，而其他物种广泛分布，并保持存在，即使在偏远的片段是一个核心问题，在基础社区生态学研究和保护生物学。 一个关键的假设是，物种之间的扩散能力的差异强烈影响分布格局。物种在斑块之间移动的容易程度与它们在孤立群落中的存在之间的联系经常被假设，但很少进行实验评估。 本项目的目标是揭示在一个群岛的森林岛屿的热带林下森林鸟类的扩散能力和社区组成之间的关系。 这将通过评估限制扩散假说来实现，该假说指出：森林林下鸟类物种之间的行为或生理特征的变化，如穿越栖息地间隙的意愿或能力，解释了岛屿占用的地理模式。为了评估扩散能力，我将进行一系列简单的实验，用船将鸟类运送到距离大陆森林不同距离的地方，然后释放，以记录它们成功飞回大陆的能力。 初步结果显示，释放试验中飞行的最大距离与每个物种居住的最孤立岛屿的距离之间存在很强的正相关性。更广泛的科学影响是显而易见的：热带景观中碎片的连通性对于确保整个区域鸟类的持久性至关重要。如果没有栖息地的走廊，鸟类可以在斑块之间移动，破碎的景观将缺乏鸟类动物群的子集，这是穷人的分散。

Habitat fragmentation is the process by which large areas of continuous habitat are divided into smaller pieces (i.e. "habitat islands" or "patches"), usually due to human activity. Understanding why some species are intolerant of habitat fragmentation and disappear from isolated patches, whereas other species are widely distributed and maintain a presence even in remote fragments is a central issue in both basic community ecological research and conservation biology. A key hypothesis is that differences in dispersal abilities among species strongly influence distribution patterns. The connection between how easily species move between patches and their presence in isolated communities has often been hypothesized but rarely experimentally evaluated. The goal of this project is to uncover the relationship between dispersal ability and community composition for tropical understory forest birds in an archipelago of forested islands. This will be accomplished by evaluating the Restricted Dispersal Hypothesis, which states: Variation in behavioral or physiological traits among species of forest understory birds, such as willingness or ability to cross a habitat gap, explains biogeographic patterns of island occupancy. To assess dispersal ability, I will conduct a series of simple experiments where birds are transported by boat to various distances away from mainland forest and released to document their abilities to fly successfully back to mainland. Preliminary results show a strong positive correlation between the maximum distance flown in release trials and the distance to the most isolated island inhabited by each species. Broader scientific impacts are clear: connectivity of fragments in tropical landscapes is critical to ensure persistence of entire regional avifaunas. Without corridors of habitat through which birds may move among patches, fragmented landscapes will lack the subset of avifaunas which are poor dispersers.