Bird community assembly in Bornean industrial tree plantations: Effects of forest age and structure

▶ Industrial plantations that produce fast growing trees for paper, plywood, and wood products are potentially good locations to study tropical bird ecology because of their simple forest structure and bird communities. ▶ Bird communities in Acacia mangium diversified as the plantation forest matured and developed structurally. ▶ Correlation between forest structure and species composition was demonstrated in several cases. ▶ Common small bodied insectivores, frugivores, and nectarivores make extensive use of A. mangium, but large bodied, specialized, and rare bird species do not. ▶ The ability to study bird species assembly in Southeast Asian industrial tree plantations is hampered by a lack of information on foraging, food, and species interactions of most forest bird groups. Continued observations of birds in plantations should rectify this shortage of information.