Mammal and bird diversity in coniferous forests under management in the Trans-Mexican Neovolcanic Belt

Abstract

To certify their forestry properties, foresters need to implement monitoring activities that, among other things, show the magnitude of the impact of timber harvesting on wildlife. To establish a baseline, randomly distributed camera-traps were used to assess the alpha diversity of two groups of terrestrial vertebrates in forests subject to management in the Trans-Mexican Neovolcanic Belt, state of Puebla. The data were analyzed with Hill numbers, a group of diversity measures that involves relative abundance and species richness, and consider the bias caused by individuals present within an area but not recorded during the study. The sampling effort was 1 800 trap-days, capturing images of 13 species of mammals and 7 of birds, which corresponds to the observed richness, while the estimated richness was 14 and 7 effective species, respectively. The results indicate that the richness and diversity of both assemblages was similar in two forest management methods. The exception was the Forestry Development Method, where the reciprocal of Simpson's diversity of mammals was 2.5 times higher than in the Mexican Management Method for Irregular Forests It is recommend to apply a rigorous experimental design to compare different management practices.