Avian community response to vegetation succession caused by the pinewood nematode in Zhejiang, China
松材线虫侵袭引发的植被演替对鸟类群落的影响

The pine wood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilis) has been causing widespread losses to pines in China since it was first found in 1982. It can bring about forest degradation. To study the effect of nematode-induced forest succession on avian communities, we chose three forest types at different seral stages, including evergreen broad-leaved coppice infested by the pine wood nematode for five years and evergreen broad-leaved forest infested for 12 years, both from Xiangshan County, Zhejiang, and one 40-year-old evergreen broad-leaved forest from Tiantong National Forest Park, Zhejiang. The results showed that bird species richness and diversity were significantly greater in the two infested evergreen broad-leaved forest types with little difference between them, while there existed little difference in bird abundance and evenness in the three types. It suggested that the evergreen broad-leaved forests at early successional stage had higher bird species richness and diversity. Stepwise multiple regression models of bird community variables indicated that microhabitat feature such as stand age was an important predictor of bird community composition.