Biodiversity Assessment of Avifauna in the Forest Reservation of Aurora State College of Technology (ASCOT), Philippines

Abstract

The research study was conducted to assess and quantify the current status of avifauna biodiversity assets of Aurora State College of Technology&#8217;s Forest Reservation in Baler, Aurora, Philippines. Assessment of avifaunal diversity was undertaken by traversing the four established circular plots having a radius of 125 meters or 250 meters diameters each as permanent monitoring stations. Study revealed a total number of 151 Individual species, classified into 23 genera and 21 families. Eighteen of these species are endemic while the remaining five were fully migrated birds. All birds observed were classified as Least Concern (LC) species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature&#8217;s Red List of Threatened Species and the updated list of the Birds of the World online. Its abundance, richness and diversity index were calculated using Shannon Diversity Index (<i>H</i>') while Pielou&#8217;s evenness (<i>J</i>') for distribution of species. Forest reservation of ASCOT has more even (0.756 <i>J</i>') and moderate diversity (2.812 <i>H</i>') observation on avifauna in general. However, this avian population evaluation was threatened into a verge of extinction due to natural and anthropological threats that causes forest deforestation. Such deforestation of habitat causes dwindling of wildlife territory leading to the scarcity of bird&#8217;s population. Thus, the assessment was conducted to aid ASCOT administration find significant plans to ensure sustainable conservation and protection of the remaining avifauna species in the reservation area.