Understory avifauna exhibits altered mobbing behavior in tropical forest degraded by selective logging

In understanding the impacts of selective logging on biodiversity, relatively little is known about the critical behavioral link between altered forest conditions and population persistence. Predator-mobbing is a widespread anti-predator behavior in birds that expresses a well-known trade-off influencing prey survival under predation risk. Here, we ask whether the predator-mobbing behavior of understory forest birds is altered by selective logging and associated forest structural changes in the highly endangered lowland rainforest of Sumatra. At four study sites spanning a gradient of logging-induced forest degradation, we used standardized mobbing and owl call playbacks with predator model presentation to elicit the predator-mobbing behavior of understory prey birds, compared birds' mobbing intensity across sites, and related variation in this intensity to forest vegetation structure. We found that selective logging altered birds' predator-mobbing intensity (measured by behavioral conspicuousness and propensity to approach the predator) as well as forest structure, and that vegetative changes to canopy and understory were correlated with contrasting responses by the two major bird foraging guilds, gleaning versus flycatching birds. We additionally discuss the implications of our findings for further hypothesis testing pertaining to the impacts of selective logging on the ecological processes underlying prey mobbing behavior, particularly with regards to predator-prey interactions and prey accruement of energy reserves.