Insectivorous bird communities of monoculture plantations in Konkan region, Maharashtra

Abstract

Tropical forests worldwide are increasingly fragmented and converted into human-modified landscapes owing to the mounting anthropogenic pressures. The forest fragments remain as habitat islands situated amidst a matrix of human-modified land uses. Though such landscapes of multiple land use are known to negatively impact wild biodiversity, some human-modified land uses are known to act as secondary habitats for select taxa. One such land use type is agricultural plantations. Large amounts of forests around the world have been converted into commercial plantations of cash crops and the role of such plantations in sustaining local biodiversity is of key conservation interest.