How well an avian community is coping with heavy forest loss in an urbanized tropical landscape?

Abstract. - Singapore is one of the most densely populated areas of our planet. Mainly due to heavy forest loss that started in mid 1800s, Singapore has already lost 67% of its forest-dependent bird species. Insectivorous bird species and those that occur in the forest canopy suffered heavy losses. It seems that the avifauna has now attained a reduced local extinction rate due to a relaxation process (a stable lower diversity following habitat destruction). However, recent artificial nest experiments reveal one of the highest reported ground-nest depredation in Singapore. Further, a comparison, based on mist-netting showed that the bird community here is still showing signs of possible environmental stress when compared to the communities in continuous forests of Malaysia. Our studies show that heavy forest loss in Southeast Asia results in proportionate avian losses.