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Bird communities in stands of non-native trees
Hanzelka, Jan ; Reif, Jiří (advisor) ; Hořák, David (referee) ; Šálek, Miroslav (referee)
6 Abstract This thesis deals with the effects of non-native tree stands on birds in the Czech Republic. Non-native plants, including trees, are known to adversely affect the biodiversity. At the same time, birds represent a widely used biodiversity indicator. The studies of bird communities in stands of non-native trees presented here show the extent to which the birds have been impacted by non-native tree stands. This knowledge can be used to evaluate the importance of non-native plants as a biodiversity threatening factor. As the representatives of widespread non-native trees, the broad-leaved black locust and coniferous black pine were selected. In these stands I investigated possible mechanisms affecting bird communities, arising from assumed differences in vegetation structure, bird species richness, bird community composition, food supplies, and nest predation pressure compared to the stands of native oak and native Scots pine. In general, the bird species richness positively correlates with the vegetation structure complexity. Despite the fact that the non-native stands proved to have a higher heterogeneity of vegetation structure than the native stands, bird species richness did not differ among the focal stands. The bird community composition was primarily affected by the birds' preference of...
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