Supplementary Information:
Minimizing the biodiversity impact of Neotropical
oil palm development
James J. Gilroy, Graham W. Prescott, Johann S. Cardenas, Pamela Gonzalez del Pliego
Castañeda, Claudia A. Medina Uribe, Torbjørn Haugaasen, David P Edwards
Corresponding author and current address: James Gilroy, School of Environmental
Science, University of East Anglia, UK, Tel: +44 (0)1603 592542, Fax: +44 (0)1603 591327,
email: james.gilroy1@googlemail.com
This supplement contains:
Supplementary Table S1
Supplementary Figures S1-S5
1
Table S1. Summary of abundance (total individuals detected) and alpha diversity (number of
species detected) for each taxonomic group across sampling locations in each habitat type,
together with rarefaction-based estimates of observed richness (Sobs) and estimated total
species richness (Sest, mean across six estimators). Values show means ± standard deviation;
statistically significant differences between habitats are indicated by symbols (habitats with
shared symbols do not differ significantly at p<0.05, Tukey’s HSD). Note that abundances
are not available for ants as these were sampled as presence/absence only.
Abundance
Alpha
Sobs
Sest
Oil palm
-
19.5 ± 7.0*
142
190
Cattle pasture
-
11.6 ± 5.2§
103
128
Forests
-
24.5 ± 7.6¥
195
256
Oil palm
85.1 ± 91.7*
9.1 ± 5.2*
38
47
Cattle pasture
17.2 ± 30.3§
2.8 ± 2.1§
20
21
143.7 ± 125.8¥
13.6 ± 4.5¥
39
47
Oil palm
37.0 ± 25.5*
18.9 ± 7.7*
121
142
Cattle pasture
64.7 ± 35.9§
21.4 ± 8.3*
144
175
Forests
64.8 ± 18.6§
35.9 ± 8.8§
202
249
Oil palm
6.5 ± 5.7*
2.6 ± 1.9*
22
30
Cattle pasture
5.3 ± 6.8*
2.3 ± 1.8§
13
18
Forests
4.1 ± 2.5*
2.7 ± 1.4*
23
42
Ants:
Dung beetles:
Forests
Birds:
Herpetofauna:
2
Figure S1 Maps showing (a) the extent of the Llanos region (light green) in northern South
America, together with (b) the locations of the three study areas in relation to the extent of
remaining forest cover in the region, mapped via a threshold transformation from
ALOS/PALSAR cloud-free forest cover data (green = forest, yellow = agricultural habitats).
Bottom panels (c-e) show the cover of oil palm (brown), cattle pasture (yellow) and remnant
forest (green) within each study site, mapped directly using Google Earth v. 7.1.2 Landsat
imagery (from 2010). Dots show individual sampling locations in oil palm (bright green),
cattle pasture (red) and forest (blue).
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Number of sampling points
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Site:
La Carolina
Guaycaramo
Palumea
5-10
11-15
16-20
21-25
Palm stand age
26-30
Figure S2 Breakdown of oil palm stand ages at sampling points located across our three
study areas.
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Figure S3. Mean estimated occupancy probabilities for each species at typical sampling
locations in oil palm, relative to those in cattle pasture. Probabilities are derived from
hierarchical community models, assuming mean proximity and proportionate cover of
remnant natural habitats surrounding sampling locations. Probabilities are shown for all ant
(a), dung beetle (b), bird (c) and herpetofauna (d) species detected during sampling, colorcoded to reflect the magnitude of proportionate difference in occurrence probabilities
between the two habitats. A 1:1 line is also shown for clarity.
5
Canonical discriminant analysis axis 2
0.15
0.15
(a)
0.1
0.1
0.05
0.05
0
0
-0.05
-0.05
-0.1
-0.1
-0.15
-0.2
0.12
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
(b)
-0.15
-0.4
60
(c)
-0.2
0
0.2
-50
0
50
(d)
40
0.08
20
0.04
0
0
-20
-0.04
-40
-0.08
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
-60
-100
Canonical discriminant analysis axis 1
Oil palm age classes:
5-17 years
17-22 years
22-28 years
Figure S4. Canonical discriminant analysis (CDA) of principal components to assess
community variation within oil palm plantations with respect to palm stand age, showing
results for ants (a), dung beetles (b), birds (c) and herpetofauna (d). Permutation tests suggest
communities differ significantly with respect to stand age for ants and dung beetles (P<0.001
in both cases) but not for birds (P=0.365) or herpetofauna (P=0.546).
6
Figure S5. Posterior-predictive samples of species accumulation curves in cattle pasture,
showing the influence of forest cover and proximity on species richness. Each line shows a
model-based prediction of species accumulation across a set of sampling locations within
pasture, where colours indicate the proportionate cover of forest habitats within a 250 m
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radius surrounding each location. Left-hand panels show samples for locations 25 m from the
nearest forest edge, middle panels 100 m from the edge and right-hand panels 250 m from the
edge. Samples are shown for ants (a-c), dung beetles (d-f), birds (g-i) and herpetofauna (j-l).
8