Effects of spatial patterning within working pine forests on priority avian species in Mississippi.

Context: Within dynamic ecosystems, research into how land use changes and patterns affect species diversity has led to a suite of ecological hypotheses to assess species-landscape associations. The Habitat Amount Hypothesis suggests that it is the total amount of habitat, regardless of configuration, whereas the Multi-dimensional Hypothesis suggests it is the suite of local, landscape, and landform characteristics that have the greatest influence on species diversity within its local landscape. Objectives: Our study aims to understand how landscape pattern influences species abundance, in the context of these two competing hypotheses on priority avian species in working forest landscapes of the southeastern United States. Methods: To examine these hypotheses, we conducted bird point counts and vegetation surveys in short-rotation loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) forests in east-central Mississippi during 2019–2020 and used abundance and richness models to assess avian species associations to amount vs. configuration of habitat in a 2 km² landscape. Results: We found that habitat amount alone did not exhibit consistent positive associations with species abundance for both early-successional and mature forest associated avian communities. Most target species exhibited positive associations with patch proximity, measured by Euclidean distance, and proximity-area index. However, measures of species richness showed no association with amount or proximity. Associations with landform features generally had positive influences on early-successional species than mature-pine priority species. Conclusions: The dynamic mosaic of forest stand ages may be sufficient in providing habitat needs such that measures of richness are not driven by amount and proximity at the 2 km² scale in this working landscape. However, influences of proximity and landform on priority species abundance warrant further research to assess potential drivers of associations with stand proximity and effects of amount and proximity on measures of species diversity across scales. Given the growing demand for forest products, sustainable forestry guidelines that consider proximity of stands in similar age classifications could enhance landscape suitability for some target species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]