Do pine plantations provide suitable breeding habitat for cavity-nesting birds? Evidence from occupancy, reproductive performance, and parental behaviour in south-central Chile

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The rapid expansion of exotic tree plantations has raised concerns about their capacity to support native biodiversity. While many studies focus on species occurrence, few have evaluated whether plantations provide suitable breeding habitat using demographic and behavioural metrics. We assessed the quality of mature Pinus radiata plantations as breeding habitat for cavity-nesting birds in the fragmented Maulino forest of south-central Chile. We installed 290 nest boxes across 29 landscape units and monitored nest-box occupancy, breeding success, fledgling production, chick growth, and parental provisioning behaviour. Nest-box occupancy was significantly higher in pine plantations (63.1%) than in native forest fragments (35.8%; GLMM, p < 0.001). However, breeding success (GLM, p = 0.52), fledgling production (Wilcoxon, p = 0.63), and chick growth trajectories did not differ between habitats. Parental provisioning behaviour showed little variation between habitats: visit rates were similar and exhibited only a weak decline with chick age, whereas search behaviour increased strongly with chick age but was not influenced by habitat type. These behavioural patterns were not associated with variation in chick mass. Most breeding attempts (89%) corresponded to the House Wren ( Troglodytes aedon ). Our results indicate that mature pine plantations can provide functionally suitable breeding habitat for generalist cavity-nesting birds when nesting sites are available. Although occupancy was substantially higher in plantations, demographic performance and parental behaviour remained comparable to those observed in native forest fragments. Because our results are based on a single breeding season and were dominated by a generalist species, caution is warranted when extrapolating these findings to more specialized forest birds.