The Diversity and Abundance of Understorey Avifauna in Bormeo

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One of the four major islands of the great Indo-Malayan Archipelago is a Borneo that located along the Sumatra, Java, and Sulawesi. According to the Das (2006), Borneo is situated between coordinates 040 S to 070 N and 109 to 1190 E. Approximately 743,380 km2 the third largest tropical island land area in the world was covered by Borneo (Darison and Fook, 2001). The most largest and familiar groups of vertebrate are birds with some 9672 species known worldwide (MacKinnon, 1991). MacKinnon and Phillipps (1993), states that Borneo has 66% of the residents land birds of the region or 358 species. Due to the adaptation to the various ways of life, there are many families of birds present a colourful and bizarre diversity. Tuen and Darub (1999) found that, birds depend for resources to maintain the productivity of the peat swamp forest and many understorey birds perform important ecological function as a role as prey-predators, seed dispersal, and pollinators (Peh, et. al., 2005). In Borneo, the major forest formation is peat swamp forest and it is important reservoir to maintain the biodiversity (Fatimah and Hill, 2006). MacKinnon and Phillipps (1993) pointed out that peat swamp is valuable and threatened habitat that supports a specialized subset of the lowland forest bird-fauna. From the previous research by Tuen and Darub (1999), they conclude that the air quality and habitat structures influenced the abundance and diversity of the understorey birds. The problem statement for this research is how habitat fragmentation influences the bird species distribution and abundance in UNIMAS campus. Researches by Catherine and John (2001) suggest that, large forest blocks should be conserved due to management birds in a fragmented forest. ... ... middle of paper ... ...ental Conservation, UNIMAS, pp 129-136. Ridzuan, M. (2006). Kajian terhadap Burung-burung di Kampus UNIMAS, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak. Faculty of Resource Science and Technology, UNIMAS. pp 2-15. Unpublished. Smythies, B. E. (1999). The Birds of Borneo. Natural History Publications (Borneo). Kota Kinabalu, pp 1-21. Sodhi, N. S. (2002). The effect of food-supply on Southeast Asian forest birds. Ornithological Science 1: 89-93. Tuen, A. A. and Darub, A. W. (1999). The Diversity and Abundance of Understorey Birds in a Peat Swamp Forest of Sarawak. Malayan Nature Journal 53(4): 287-294. Waltert, M., Mardiastuti, A. and Michael, M. (2005). Effect of deforestation and forest modification on understorey birds in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Birds Conservation International 15: 257-273. Zar, J. H. (1996). Biostatical Analysis, Third Edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.

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