Long-term change in the avifauna of undisturbed Amazonian rainforest: ground-foraging birds disappear and the baseline shifts

How are rainforest birds faring in the Anthropocene? We use bird captures spanning > 35 years from 55 sites within a vast area of intact Amazonian rainforest to reveal reduced abundance of terrestrial and near-ground insectivores in the absence of deforestation, edge effects or other direct anthropogenic landscape change. Because undisturbed forest includes far fewer terrestrial and near-ground insectivores than it did historically, today's fragments and second growth are more impoverished than shown by comparisons with modern 'control' sites. Any goals for bird community recovery in Amazonian second growth should recognise that a modern bird community will inevitably differ from a baseline from > 35 years ago. Abundance patterns driven by landscape change may be the most conspicuous manifestation of human activity, but biodiversity declines in undisturbed forest represent hidden losses, possibly driven by climate change, that may be pervasive in intact Amazonian forests and other systems considered to be undisturbed.

Automated summary

Research has shown that bird populations in the Amazon rainforest are decreasing without the presence of deforestation or other human-induced changes. Today's forest fragments and second growth are more impoverished compared to historical abundance, and goals for bird community recovery in second growth must acknowledge that modern bird communities will inevitably differ from those of over 35 years ago.