Boreal forest landbirds in relation to forest composition, structure, and landscape: implications for forest management

We examined a landbird community and its relationship to environmental variables within the boreal forest in north–central Ontario to evaluate its potential usefulness as an indicator of sustainable forest management. Our study had two components. First, we compared bird assemblages in mature forest stands inside Pukaskwa National Park (n = 17) with similar forested stands in a logged landscape (n = 18) over 3 years. We found significant separation of sites in the two treatments based on an ANOSIM (analogue of the standard univariate one-way ANOVA test) of the bird communities (R = 0.238, p < 0.001). We identified four significant indicators of the park landscape (bay-breasted warbler (Dendroica castanea (Wilson, 1810)), black-throated green warbler (Dendroica virens (J.F. Gmelin, 1789)), ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus (L., 1766)), and red-eyed vireo (Vireo olivaceus (L., 1766))) and five indicators of the logged landscape (black-backed woodpecker (Picoides arcticus (Swainson, 1832)), brown creeper (Certh...

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