Response of Breeding Bird Communities to Restoration of Hardwood Bottomlands
Much of the original hardwood bottomland in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley is converted to crop lands. Land management agencies began restoring hardwood bottomland because of its importance to wildlife. To provide an initial evaluation of progress toward restoration, we used point counts to compare bird communities among plantations of 0 to 4, 7 to 15, and 21 to 27 years in age with natural sawtimber stands (>50 years in age) in the southern Delta region of Mississippi in 1994 and 1995. Mean number of species per point (species richness) increased with stand age (P < 0.05). Mean...
