Forests of eastern North America have been negatively impacted by excessive white-tailed deer browsing for decades. Previous studies have shown how deer-driven changes to forest structure, plant species composition, and microhabitat negatively impact forest birds. However, most experimental studies used relatively small plot sizes with few replications, limiting the transferability of findings to operational-scale timber harvests and landscape-scale management. We studied the influence of white-tailed deer browsing on breeding bird communities in ten pairs of operational-sized fenced and unfenced regeneration timber harvests in northcentral Pennsylvania. Based on a previous study that examined correlations between bird and deer abundance in Pennsylvania, we developed species-specific predictions about how density would vary between fenced and unfenced harvests. We predicted six species would show a negative response to deer and three would show a neutral response. Overall, diversity and composition of breeding bird communities did not differ between fenced and unfenced harvests. However, four species showed a negative response to deer, four showed a neutral response to deer, and one showed a positive response to deer. Thus, six of nine focal species aligned with our predictions: negative (n = 4) and neutral (n = 2). Densities of two remaining focal species were associated with vegetative features that also were consistent with our predictions. Our final focal species showed a strong positive association with unfenced harvests, contrary to our prediction. Our findings demonstrate that deer-induced impacts on vegetation in operational-scale timber harvests can have considerable influence on densities of some avian species. We conclude that the use of deer-exclusion fencing after timber harvests is an effective and sometimes necessary management tool to achieve maximum forestry and wildlife benefits.

中文翻译：

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鸟类对植物群落组成和结构在有蹄类排斥围栏保护的再生木材收获中的反应

几十年来，北美东部的森林一直受到白尾鹿过度觅食的负面影响。先前的研究表明，鹿驱动的森林结构、植物物种组成和微生境变化如何对森林鸟类产生负面影响。然而，大多数实验研究使用的地块面积相对较小，重复次数很少，限制了研究结果在运营规模木材采伐和景观规模管理中的可转移性。我们研究了宾夕法尼亚州中北部十对可操作规模的围栏和无围栏再生木材采伐中白尾鹿觅食对繁殖鸟类群落的影响。根据之前一项检查宾夕法尼亚州鸟类和鹿丰度之间相关性的研究，我们针对有围栏和无围栏的收成之间的密度变化进行了针对特定物种的预测。我们预测六个物种会对鹿表现出负面反应，三个物种会表现出中性反应。总体而言，围栏和无围栏收获之间繁殖鸟类群落的多样性和组成没有差异。然而，四种动物对鹿表现出消极反应，四种对鹿表现出中性反应，一种对鹿表现出积极反应。因此，九个焦点物种中有六个与我们的预测一致：阴性（n = 4）和中性（n = 2）。其余两个焦点物种的密度与植物特征相关，这也与我们的预测一致。与我们的预测相反，我们最终的焦点物种与无围栏的收成有很强的正相关性。我们的研究结果表明，在运营规模的木材采伐中，鹿对植被的影响会对某些鸟类物种的密度产生相当大的影响。我们得出的结论是，在木材采伐后使用防鹿围栏是一种有效且有时是必要的管理工具，以实现最大的林业和野生动物利益。