Newly identified African bird species already in trouble

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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