Foraging Habitat Selection of Shrubland Bird Community During the Dry Season in Tropical Dry Forests

Unmitigated climate change, coupled with habitat loss, has made the grassland and shrubland bird communities particularly vulnerable to extinction. Climate change-induced drought reduces net primary productivity, food availability, habitat quality, and alters vegetation structure. These factors collectively increase mortality in grassland and shrubland birds. However, limited data on habitat use by tropical birds hampers the development of effective management plans for drought-affected landscapes. We examined the foraging sites of 18 shrubland bird species, including two endemic and four declining species, across three shrubland forest sites in the Eastern Ghats of India during the dry season. We recorded microhabitat features within an 11 m radius of observed foraging points and compared them with random plots. Additionally, we examined the association between bird species and plant species where a bird was observed foraging. Foraging sites differed significantly from random plots, indicating active selection of microhabitats by shrubland birds. Using linear discriminant analysis, we found that the microhabitat features important for the bird species were presence of ground cover, shrub density, vegetational height, and vertical foliage stratification. Our results show that diet guild and foraging strata influence the foraging microhabitat selection of a species. Microhabitat attributes selected by shrubland specialist species differed from those of generalist shrubland users. Thirteen out of 18 focal species showed a significant association with at least one plant species. Birds were often associated with plants that were green during the dry season. Based on habitat selection and plant associations, we identified several habitat attributes that can be actively managed. Despite being classified as wastelands, the heavily degraded shrub forests can be rehabilitated through strategic and selective harvesting of forest products, targeting invasive species, and a spatially and temporally controlled livestock grazing regime.