Effects of land use management on biotic integrity: An investigation of bird communities

We examined the response of bird communities to a gradient of human impact in the Adirondack Park of northern New York State by testing the relationship of land use management types to an Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) across the Adirondack landscape. We created the IBI by placing birds into 12 different guild categories and scoring study blocks according to relative representation of specialist versus generalist guild types. We investigated three questions relating to the effects of land use management on biotic integrity in the Adirondacks: (1) are there differences in biological integrity among the major land use types; (2) if so, what characteristics of these land use types are associated with high integrity bird communities; and, (3) to what degree is land management regulation effective in maintaining biological integrity in the Adirondack Park? We found significant differences in total, functional, compositional, and structural integrity on five land use types ranging from hamlet to wilderness. In all cases, integrity was lowest in hamlet areas and increased along the gradient to its highest level in wilderness areas. Biotic integrity showed strong groupings of the five land use classes. We found that bird community integrity was strongly related to roadlessness and that birds primarily responded to the distinction between developed and undeveloped land types. In contrast to roads and human development, forest management impacts in the Adirondacks do not appear to be of a high enough intensity to have significant negative impacts on breeding bird community integrity. Clustering of development is a means by which integrity may be safeguarded for the long term in the Adirondack Park. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.