Abstract
Species do not respond identically to the presence of humans, and this may have consequences at higher-levels of ecological organization. We established bird transects on and off recreational trails in the high Córdoba Mountains of Argentina, a biogeographic island characterized by high levels of endemism, to examine the effect of human visitation at three different levels: (a) community (avian species richness and diversity), (b) guild (relative density of carnivores, granivores, insectivores, and omnivores), and (c) population (relative density of individual bird species). Human presence in the high Córdoba Mountains decreased avian species richness and diversity, and reduced insectivorous relative density, but we did not detect significant effects on granivores, omnivores, and carnivores. At the population level, 6 of 28 species were negatively affected by human visitation; four of these species are of conservation concern. Our results show negative responses to recreationists at multiple levels (e.g., reductions in density, displacement of species from highly visited areas), which may be related to spatial and temporal access to suitable resources, physical disturbance or species-specific tolerance thresholds. Our study area had lower levels of human visitation relative to other protected areas in the Northern Hemisphere, which raises the issue of whether this kind of biogeographically isolated habitat may be too fragile to sustain increasing levels of tourism.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Beale CM, Monaghan P (2004a) Human disturbance: people as predation-free predators? J Appl Ecol 41:335–343
Beale CM, Monaghan P (2004b) Behavioural responses to human disturbance: a matter of choice? Anim Behav 68:1065–1069
Blumstein DT, Anthony LL, Harcourt RG, Ross G (2003) Testing a key assumption of wildlife buffer zones: is flight initiation distance a species-specific trait? Biol Conserv 110:97–100
Blumstein DT, Fernandez-Juricic E, Zollner PA, Garity SC (2005) Inter-specific variation in avian responses to human disturbance. J Appl Ecol 42:943–953
Bolger DT, Suarez AV, Crooks KR, Morrison SA, Case TJ (2000) Arthropods in urban habitat fragments in southern California: area, age, and edge effects. Ecol Appl 10:1230–1248
Buckland ST, Anderson DR, Burnham KP, Laake JL, Borchers DL, Thomas L (2001) Introduction to distance sampling: estimating abundance of biological populations. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford
Cabido M (1985) Las comunidades vegetales de la Pampa de Achala, Sierras de Córdoba, Argentina. Docum Phytosociol 9:431–443
Cabido M, Funes G, Pucheta E, Vendramini F, Días S (1998) A chorological analysis of the mountains from Central Argentina. Is all what we call Sierra Chaco really Chaco? Contribution to the study of the flora and vegetation of the Chaco. XII. Candollea 53:321–331
Cabido M, Antón A, Cabrera M, Cingolani A, Di Tada I, Enrico L, Funes G, Haro G, Polop J, Renison D, Rodríguez V, Roqué Garzón J, Rosacher C, Zak M (2003) Línea de Base y Programa de Monitoreo de la biodiversidad del Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito y la Reserva Hídrica Provincial Pampa de Achala. Administración de Parques Nacionales Report, Córdoba
Canaday C (1996) Loss of insectivorous birds along a gradient of human impact in Amazonia. Biol Conserv 77:63–77
Christ C, Hillel O, Matus S, Sweeting J (2003) Tourism and biodiversity: mapping tourism’s global footprint. Conservation International, Washington DC
Chuan Lim H, Sodhi NS (2004) Responses of avian guilds to urbanisation in a tropical city. Landscape Urban Plan 66:199–215
Cingolani AM, Cabido MR, Renison D, Solís Neffa V (2003) Combined effects of environment and grazing on vegetation structure in Argentine granite grasslands. J Veg Sci 14:223–232
Cingolani AM, Renison D, Zak MR, Cabido MR (2004) Mapping vegetation in a heterogeneous mountain rangeland using Landsat data: an alternative method to define and classify land-cover units. Remote Sens Environ 92:84–97
Deluca TH, Patterson WA, Freimund WA, Cole DN (1998) Influence of llamas, horses, and hikers on soil erosion from established recreation trails in western Montana, USA. Environ Manage 22:255–262
Diaz Benevides, Perez-Ducy E (2001) Tourism in the least developed countries. Madrid, WTO and UNCTAD
Fernández-Juricic E (2000) Local and regional effects of pedestrians on forest birds in a fragmented landscape. Condor 102:247–255
Fernández-Juricic E (2002) Can human disturbance promote nestedness? A case study with birds in an urban fragmented landscape. Oecologia 131:269–278
Fernández-Juricic E, Sallent A, Sanz R, Rodríguez-Prieto I (2003) Testing the risk-disturbance hypothesis in a fragmented landscape: nonlinear responses of House Sparrows to humans. Condor 105:316–326
Forsman JT, Mönkkönen M, Inkeröinen J, Reunanen P (1998) Aggregate dispersion of birds after encountering a predator: experimental evidence. J Avian Biol 29:44–48
Frid A, Dill LM (2002) Human-caused disturbance stimuli as a form of predation risk. Conserv Ecol 6(1):11. Online URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol6/iss1/art11
Gill JA, Sutherland WJ, Watkinson AR (1996) A method to quantify the effects of human disturbance on animal populations. J Appl Ecol 33:786–792
Gill JA, Norris K, Sutherland WJ (2001) Why behavioural responses may not reflect the population consequences of human disturbance. Biol Conserv 97:265–268
Gutzwiller KJ (1995) Recreational disturbance and wildlife communities. In: Knight RL, Gutzwiller KJ (eds) Wildlife and recreationists: coexistence through management and research. Island Press, Washington DC, pp 169–181
Gutzwiller KJ, Anderson SH (1999) Spatial extent of human-intrusion effects on subalpine bird distributions. Condor 101:378–389
Hammitt WE, Cole DN (1987) Wildland recreation: ecology and management. John Wiley and Sons, New York
Kiss A (2004) Is community-based ecotourism a good use of biodiversity conservation funds? Trends Ecol Evol 19:232–237
Kitahara M, Sei K, Fujii K (2000) Patterns in the structure of grassland butterfly communities along a gradient of human distrubance: further analysis based on the generalist/specialist concept. Res Popul Ecol 42:135–144
Laiolo P (2003) Diversity and structure of the bird community overwintering in the Himalayan subalpine zone: is conservation compatible with tourism? Biol Conserv 115:251–262
Luti R, Solis M, Galera F, Ferreira N, Berzal M, Nores M, Herrera M, Barrera J (1979) Vegetación. In: Vázquez JB, Miatello RA, Roqué ME (eds) Geografía Física de la Provincia de Córdoba. Ed. Bolett, Buenos Aires. pp 297–368
McDougall KL, Wright GT (2004) The impact of trampling on feldmark vegetation in Kosciuszko National Park, Australia. Aust J Bot 52:315–320
Miatello R, Baldo J, Ordano M, Rosacher C, Biancucci L (1999) Avifauna del Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito y Reserva Hídrica Provincial de Achala, Córdoba, Argentina. Una lista comentada. Talleres Gráficos de Euder S.R.L., Córdoba
Miller SG, Knight RL, Miller CK (1998) Influence of recreational trails on breeding bird communities. Ecol Appl 8:162–169
Müllner A, Linsenmair KE, Wikelski M (2004) Exposure to ecotourism reduces survival and affects stress response in hoatzin chicks (Opisthocomus hoazin). Biol Conserv 118:549–558
Nores M (1995) Insular biogeography of birds on mountain-tops in north western Argentina. J␣Biogeogr 22:61–70
Ordano M (1996) Estudio de una comunidad de aves altoserrana (Córdoba, Argentina) durante un ciclo anual. Revista de la Asociación de Ciencias Naturales del Litoral 27:83–94
Priskin J (2003) Tourist perceptions of degradation caused by coastal nature-based recreation. Environ Manage 32:189–204
Pulliam HR, Caraco T (1984) Living in groups: is there an optimal group size? In: Krebs JR, Davies NB (eds) Behavioural ecology, an evolutionary approach, 2nd edn. Sinauer, Sunderland, MA, pp␣122–147
Reijnen R, Foppen R (1995) The EFFECTS of car traffic on breeding bird populations in woodland. IV. Influence of population-size on the reduction of density close to a highway. J Appl Ecol 32:481–491
Renison D, Cingolani AM, Schinner D (2002) Optimizing restoration of Polylepis australis woodlands: when, where and how to transplant seedlings to the mountains? Ecotropica 8:219–224
Riffell SK, Gutzwiller KJ, Anderson SH (1996) Does repeated human intrusion cause cumulative declines in avian richness and abundance? Ecol Applic 6:492–505
Rodríguez-Prieto I, Fernández-Juricic E (2005) Effects of direct human disturbance on the endemic Iberian frog (Rana iberica) at individual and population levels. Biol Conserv 123:1–9
Roovers P, Verheyen K, Hermy M, Gulinck H (2004) Experimental trampling and vegetation recovery in some forest and heathland communities. Appl Veg Sci 7:111–118
Sekercioglu CH (2002) Impacts of birdwatching on human and avian communities. Environ Conserv 29:282–289
Shure DJ, Phillips DL (1991) Patch size of forest openings and arthropod populations. Oecologia 86:325–334
Skagen SK, Knight RL, Orians GH (1991) Human disturbance of an avian scavenging guild. Ecol Appl 1:215–225
Soulé ME, Alberts AC, Bolger DT (1992) The effects of habitat fragmentation on chaparral plants and vertebrates. Oikos 63:39–47
Soulé ME, Orians GH, Boersma DP (2001) Conservation biology: research priorities for the next decade. Island Press, Covelo, CA
Suarez A, Bolger D, Case T (1998) Effects of fragmentation and invasion on native ant communities in coastal Southern California. Ecology 79:2041–2056
van der Zande AN, Vos P (1984) Impact of a semi-experimental increase in recreational intensity on the densities of birds in groves and hedges on a Lake Shore in the Netherlands. Biol Conserv 30:237–259
van der Zande AN, Berkhuizen JC, van Latesteijn HC, ter Keurs WJ, Poppelaars AJ (1984) Impact of outdoor recreational activities on the density of a number of breeding bird species in woods adjacent to urban residential areas. Biol Conserv 30:1–39
Webb NR, Clarke RT, Nicholas JT (1984) Invertebrate diversity on fragmented Calluna-heathland: effects of surrounding vegetation. J Biogeogr 11:41–46
Webb NR (1989) Studies on the invertebrate fauna of fragmented heathland in Dorset, UK, and the implications for conservation. Biol Conserv 47:153–165
Webb NV, Blumstein DT (2005) Variation in human disturbance differentially affects predation risk assessment in western gulls. Condor 107:178–181
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Heil, L., Fernández-Juricic, E., Renison, D., Cingolani, A.M., Blumstein, D.T. (2006). Avian responses to tourism in the biogeographically isolated high Córdoba Mountains, Argentina. In: Hawksworth, D.L., Bull, A.T. (eds) Vertebrate Conservation and Biodiversity. Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6320-6_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6320-6_12
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-6319-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-6320-6
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)