Abstract

GONZALEZ-MEDINA, Judith Karina; FIGUEROA-ESQUIVEL, Elsa M.  and  PUEBLA-OLIVARES, Fernando. Birds in two coffee areas in Nayarit, western Mexico. Huitzil [online]. 2016, vol.17, n.1, pp.18-32. ISSN 1870-7459.

Although it has been widely demonstrated that shade coffee plantations are important for bird conservation, in western Mexico there are no studies on birds in these plantations. In this work we compared two areas of coffee plantations in the state of Nayarit, to assess their importance for the conservation of avian diversity in the state. We estimated richness and abundance of birds in the Sierra de Vallejo and Sierra de San Juan mountain ranges. We recorded a total of 123 species in 55 point counts, of which 99 and 80 species were found in the Sierra de Vallejo and Sierra de San Juan, respectively. Of all species, 89 were residents, and within these 16 were endemic and 11 were cuasiendemic, while 33 were migratory and one of them was transient (Tyrannus verticalis). Rarefaction curves indicate that species richness is similar between both mountain ranges (70±4.1 and 72±0.3 species respectively), but there are clear differences between the two sites in terms of abundance: we recorded 874 individuals in Sierra de Vallejo and 397 in Sierra de San Juan, and species diversity was 1.25 times higher in Sierra de Vallejo than in San Juan. Complementarity analysis showed that between Sierra de Vallejo and Sierra de San Juan species composition differs by 53.2%. This work shows the importance of conserving and promoting shade coffee plantations since they maintain a great diversity of birds.

Keywords : Sierra de Vallejo; Sierra de San Juan; shade coffee plantations; avian diversity.

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