FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY OF BIRDS IN RIPARIAN FORESTS OF PIEDMONT FOREST IN ARGENTINA

GOMEZ DANIELA; RIVERA LUIS; RUGGERA ROMAN; POLITI NATALIA

Congreso; Ornithological Congress of the Americas; 2017

dth: 0px; ">Functional diversity is defined as the value, range, distribution and relative abundanceof functional characters (= traits) of the organism that constitute an ecosystem. Theseare the characteristics measured at individual level and that influence in growth,breeding and survival, and/or in the effects to the organisms on the ecosystem. Theorganisms can be described in terms of their functional relationships with respect todifferent habitat characteristics. Birds are interesting to assess the functional answersto modified environments, being affected by loss of natural environments, or favoredby the presence of non - native matrix. The goal of this work is to know the functionaldiversity of birds in riparian forest in the piedmont forest of Northwestern Argentina,identifying structural variables of riparian forests that influence in the structure andfunction of the functional groups of birds. We selected six functional traits in 194 speciesof birds recorded in riparian forests, and six structural variables of these forests. Thedata were treated using RLQ Analysis, allowing functional traits to be incorporated toanalyze species ? environmental relationships, and therefore the study of relationshipsbetween the attributes of species and environmental conditions. Structural variablesshowed clear separation of sites allowing a distinction between ?disturbed?/?non ?disturbed? sites. Certain traits such as body size and guilds are ecological characteristicsthat make birds more and less prone to remain in specific sites