Journal article

Publication year: 2007

Pages: 557-565

Journal: African Journal of Ecology

Volume number: 45

Issue number: 4

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2028.2007.00769.x

Publisher: Wiley

Abstract: 

The Serengeti–Mara ecosystem holds one of the largest natural grasslands
of the world, which is well known for its large herds of mammals.
However, the bird community structure of these grasslands has hardly
ever been studied. For the first time, a large‐scale study on grassland
bird communities has been conducted in all typical open grasslands of
the Serengeti National Park. We used ten grassland plots representing a
gradient of increasing vegetation height and also including shrubs and
trees to analyse the influence of vegetation structure on the
composition of grassland bird communities. Three communities of breeding
birds were identified in relation to (a) short grass, (b) intermediate
and long grass and (c) wooded grasslands. The bird communities of
intermediate, long and wooded grassland were very similar, because of
identical dominant bird species. Our results suggest that breeding birds
of East African grasslands exhibit two contrasting habitat
relationships: (1) birds that are restricted to short grass, and (2)
species that are tolerant to vegetational shifts from intermediate grass
via long grass to early stages of woody vegetation. Because the
vegetation is often driven beyond this range in managed tropical
grasslands through high grazing pressure or through shrub encroachment,
we expect that the long‐grass bird communities will not generally resist
anthropogenic disturbance.

Harvard Citation style: Gottschalk, T., Ekschmitt, K. and Bairlein, F. (2007) Relationships between vegetation and bird community composition in grasslands of the Serengeti, African Journal of Ecology, 45(4), pp. 557-565. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2028.2007.00769.x

APA Citation style: Gottschalk, T., Ekschmitt, K., & Bairlein, F. (2007). Relationships between vegetation and bird community composition in grasslands of the Serengeti. African Journal of Ecology. 45(4), 557-565. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2028.2007.00769.x