Date: September 19, 2018
Source: American Ornithological Society Publications
Office
Central Africa's Albertine Rift
region is a biodiversity hotspot consisting of a system of highlands that spans
six countries. Recent studies have shown that the population of sooty
bush-shrikes occupying the region's mid-elevation forests is a distinct
species, and new research from The Condor: Ornithological
Applications reveals that this newly discovered species may already be
endangered due to pressure from agricultural development.
The newly identified
mid-elevation species has been dubbed Willard's Sooty Boubou, as opposed to the
previously recognized high-elevation species, the Mountain Sooty Boubou. The
Field Museum's Fabio Berzaghi (now with the CEA Laboratory for Sciences of
Climate and Environment in France) and his colleagues used museum records and
bird survey records to analyze the ecological niche occupied by each species,
and their results confirm that there is very little overlap between the ranges
of the two species -- Willard's Sooty Boubou is found at approximately
1200-1900 meters and the Mountain Sooty Boubou at 1800-3800 meters. In Burundi,
Rwanda, and Uganda, 70% of the potential for Willard's Sooty Boubou lies outside
of protected areas and has been converted to agriculture, and the numbers for
the Democratic Republic of Congo are only slightly better.
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