A Comparison of Bird Community Structure between the Primary Pine Plantation and the Secondary Evergreen Broad-leaved Forest in Zhejiang,China

The evergreen broad-leaved forest was one type of generally the first major secondary forests following pine deaths by the pine wood nematode.Bird community was investigated in the mid-aged pine forest and evergreen broad-leaved forest infested for 12 years by the pine wood nematode.The comparison study showed that in studied area,the bird species diversity and evenness didn't differ significantly between the pine forest and the evergreen broad-leaved forest,and the total species number of the two type forests were 26 and 25 respectively,but bird abundance of the pine forest showed a significantly higher value than that of the evergreen broad-leaved forest.Besides,the composition of species was similar between the two type habitats and Jaccard's similarity index was about 0.65.Our results suggested that the evergreen broad-leaved forest studied succeeded to 50% species from the primary pine forest,which led to similar vegetation composition between the two type habitats and similar bird community composition correspondingly,and on the contrary with well-developed understory,the pine forest had significantly higher bird community abundance for the well-developed understory supported a richer food resource and sufficient foraging and nesting sites for many birds.In the studied area,the avian diversity wouldn’t decrease following the succession from pine forest to evergreen broad-leaved forest.