Composición y estructura de una comunidad de aves en un área suburbana en el suroccidente colombiano

Composition and structure of a suburban bird community in southwestern Colombia

Abstract

Between May and November 2001 I studied the composition and structure of the bird community of an eight hectare patch of early secondary forest near the city of Cali, in southwestern Colombia. I recorded 114 species, 75 of which were permanent residents, 26 were occasional visitors and 13 were long-distance migrants. The families best represented in terms of numbers of species and relative density were Tyrannidae, Fringillidae and Thraupidae. I also detected evidence of reproduction in 36 species. The composition of the community of birds showed similarities between 0.292 and 0.446 (according to the Jaccard estimator) with localities in natural areas at similar elevations in the region, and between 0.366 and 0.558 with inventories of the urban area of Cali. I found five species that had not been recorded previously in the municipality of Cali and 22 species whose original distributions included the geographical valley of the Cauca river, where tropical dry forest, a habitat particularly threatened in Colombia, was once widespread. Such patches of remnant secondary forest established by natural regeneration from degraded situations contribute significantly to the conservation of the biodiversity in the immediate neighborhood of cities and they can also constitute valuable elements for environmental education.