Impacts of picnic areas on bird assemblages and nest predation activity within Australian eucalypt forests

We assessed the impacts of picnic areas on birds within adjacent eucalypt forests in the Brisbane region, Australia. Within he picnic areas there was an assemblage of relatively large, aggressive birds, including several generalist predators (Torresian row, grey and pied butcherbirds, Australian magpie) as well as the noisy miner, resembling that found in suburban areas within he study region. Eight transects abutting picnic areas (“picnic area edges”) were compared with two types of matched control ransect within forest about 150 m away: “forest interiors”, which were also distant from any other edge and “context references”, hich were similar to the picnic area edges in their proximity to the access roads and forest external edges. Bird assemblages t picnic area edges, which were dominated by the noisy miner and Australian magpie, clearly differed from those of forest nteriors, which were characterised by a number of smaller bodied insectivorous species. Levels of artificial nest predation were everal-fold greater adjacent to the picnic areas. Context reference transects were more often similar to forest interiors than to icnic area edges. We conclude that picnic areas exert strong localised edge effects on forest bird assemblages, and are likely to ause reduced reproductive success for small-bodied forest bird species which attempt to nest nearby. 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.