Alvaro Redondo Brenes
Doctoral Candidate in Tropical Forestry & ConservationResearch
Dissertation Statement: Effect of land use, political and socioeconomic factors on the conservation of wildlife in the Path of the Tapir Biological Corridor, Costa Rica
Dissertation abstract
Due to the limitations of current protected area system and forested areas in providing habitat for most wildlife species, in the last two decades efforts have shifted to studying wildlife biodiversity in human-modified landscapes. The present study was carried out in the Path of the Tapir Biological Corridor, Costa Rica. The corridor, an 82,000 ha area of fragmented forests, encompasses 55 rural communities with more than 10,000 people. It is considered one of the most diverse regions in the pacific coast of Central America. However, deforestation and development are threatened this high biodiversity. The main objective of dissertation is to describe the contribution to bird biodiversity conservation of ten different habitat types in the corridor: wildlife refuges, biological reserves, forest edges, forest fallows, tree plantations, agrosilvopastoral systems, homegardens, oil palm plantations, villages, and residential tourism projects. Bird data was obtained using point counts along a two-year period. Each habitat type had 20 sampling points (200 total), and each point was visited three times during summer and three times during winter seasons. Overall, 44, 917 birds from 48 families and 334 species were identified for this study. Forested land-use types had the highest number of bird species (81%). However, 77% of birds registered were found in the human-modified land-use types. In general, is concluded that forested habitats should be the priority areas for conservation at the landscape level. Moreover, in human-modified landscapes forest fallows, agroforestry systems, and native tree plantations can be incorporated in land-use planning strategies to aid the otherwise isolated and fragmented forests.
