Habitat Preference of Sylviidae warblers of three forest habitat types, North-eastern Algeria

Abstract

Birds are found across the world in all major habitat types, exact knowledge of habitat preferences is important for understanding the basis of bird community relations like as well it is important for biodiversity conservation. This study aims to describe the composition of breeding sylviid warbler and to analyze their spatial distribution between three habitat types (pure holm oak forests, mixed forests of holm oak-Aleppo pine and mixed forests of holm oak-cypress), we conducted the first study on forest habitat preference of Sylviidae warlbers in forest ecosystem, in the North-eastern of Algeria, using the point count method (IPA) Seven species were observed, belonging to the Sylviidae family. We noted that sylviid warbler species richness at each point count ranged between two and four species. The three most common forest sylviid warbler species were Sardinian Warbler Curruca melanocephala,Common Whitethroat Curruca communis and Dartford Warbler Curruca undata. According to the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test, species richness and diversity of Sylvia warlbers communities were significantly higher in mixed holm oak-cypress stands than in holm oak-Aleppo pine forestss and pure holm oak woodlands