The effects of land-use conversion and agricultural intensification on tropical birds have been widely studied, but focused largely on ecological and functional patterns. Replacement of forest with monocultures alters microclimatic conditions throughout the landscape. In this work, we investigated the differences in microclimatic temperatures across forest, shaded and unshaded coffee plantations and studied the physiological impacts on four Neotropical bird species that thrive in agricultural landscapes. Unshaded coffee plantations presented birds with the most challenging thermal environment but all species were able to withstand current maximum temperatures. However, replenishing water lost to dissipate heat in unshaded farms might become a problem if temperatures will keep raising. The full article can be found in this link
The article is the result of a collaboration with Stefan Dullinger and Christian Schulze of the Department of Botanic, University of Vienna
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