Thresholds, incidence functions, and species-specific cues : responses of woodland birds to landscape structure in south-eastern Australia

Looking out from a vantage point across a large tract of forest gives a superficial impression of uniformity: the crowns of canopy trees follow the folds and contours of the landscape to provide a continuous cover of wooded vegetation. But this visual appearance belies the truth: forested landscapes are far from uniform. On closer examination, they comprise a complex mosaic of different vegetation types and and stands of different age-classes, differing structural features, and modified to a varying extent by human land-uses. Forests have a critical role in the conservation of biodiversity throughout the world (Peterken 1996; Laurance and Bierregard 1997; Lindenmayer and Franklin 2002) and a key feature contributing to their conservation value is the response of forest biota to the heterogeneity inherent in forested landscapes (Lindenmayer et al. 2006). Consequently, an understanding of the implications of landscape structure for the maintainance of species and ecological processes is an important foundation for forest management and biodiversity conservation.