Deforestation and bird habitat loss in Colombia

Tropical forests harbor most of the planet’s terrestrial biodiversity, and their loss means destruction of habitat for many species. Tropical deforestation continues at high rates in many regions, but it is often reported only in terms of area lost or its impacts on high-profile threatened species. We estimated the impact of both past and projected future deforestation on habitat extent for the entire assemblage of forest-dependent birds across Colombia, the country with more bird species than any other. Of the 550 forest-dependent species analysed, Almost all (n=536; 96.5%) had lost habitat, and 18% had lost at least half of their habitat by 2015. We used the recently developed Loss Index (LI) to capture the severity of habitat loss for the forest bird assemblage, discovering that the current LI for Colombia is 35, which means 35% of bird species have lost at least 35% of their habitat. The national LI for Colombia is projected to rise to 43 by 2040 if recent forest loss trends continue. There were large regional differences; Caribe had an LI of 82 while for the Pacific it was 14. A threat assessment for the regionally endemic species in the country showed that 12 (30%) of the species that are projected to lose 50% or more of their historical habitat by 2040 are not currently classified as threatened by the IUCN, suggesting that there are many species that are not listed but that face an imminent extinction threat from habitat loss. This extensive habitat depletion affecting entire species assemblages has significant implications for tropical forest ecosystems, and risks eroding ecosystem function and ecosystem service provision.