Diversity, Diet and Foraging Ecology of Insectivorous Birds (Family: Timaliidae-Muscicapidae) in the Interior Sarawak, Malaysia

Attiqqah Fadziliah, Sapian (2019) Diversity, Diet and Foraging Ecology of Insectivorous Birds (Family: Timaliidae-Muscicapidae) in the Interior Sarawak, Malaysia. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).

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Abstract

Forest birds’ especially insectivorous birds are being affected by the human activities. This study aims to determine the species diversity of babblers and flycatchers in the interior parts of Sarawak and effects of habitat disturbance to their diversity. It also aims to investigate the relationship between the food resources and diet of babblers and flycatchers. Field work was conducted by setting a total of 96 mist nets arranged in a stacked manner for four consecutive days in each of three study sites namely Pelagus, Ulu Baleh and Baram. A total of 222 individuals from 14 species of babblers and 70 individuals of flycatchers representing 11 species were caught during this study. The most common babbler species caught for the whole three sites was Black-throated babbler (Stachyris nigricollis) while that of flycatcher caught was Black-naped Monarch (Hypothymis azurea). The species diversity of babblers and flycatchers in this study were mostly affected by their foraging height as babblers forage closer to the forest floor and easily caught in the mist nets than flycatchers. The diet of these two families are similar but the overlapping of the food resources are relatively low due to the differences in habitat and arthropod preferences. The number of babbler species (n =13) caught in the station that was 100 metres from the human settlement area (Station 1) was equal to the number of species caught in the station that was one kilometre from the human settlement area (Station 2). For flycatchers, the number of species caught were higher in Station 2 (n =11) than in Station 1 (n =6). Based on the Shannon’s Diversity index, Station 2 has higher tree diversity than Station 1 thus, higher habitat heterogeneity. This results suggests that the flycatchers are more vulnerable to human disturbance than babblers and the species diversity of flycatchers was affected by habitat heterogeneity. Keywords: Babblers, flycatchers, diversity, foraging height, forest strata, diet, insects, habitat heterogeneity

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