Territorial expansion of Zenaida auriculata (Aves: Columbidae) in the Brazilian Amazon

Birds are considered bioindicators of environmental quality because they are sensitive to environmental changes. The eared dove ( Zenaida auriculata ) is associated with open areas, has low sensitivity to environmental changes and is widely distributed in Brazil, although it is not typically found in the Amazon region. We analyzed the biogeographic expansion of this species in the Brazilian Amazon through searches carried out on digital citizen science platforms. The records of Z. auriculata were related with the area of accumulated deforestation in the biome. We identified 804 records of Z. auriculata in the Brazilian Amazon, of which 259 were in areas where its occurrence had been previously unknown. We show that the species has been expanding its geographic distribution, clearly overlapping with deforested areas.

Many anthropogenic factors currently affect bird populations and assemblages, including hunting, invasion of exotic species, deforestation and associated forest fragmentation (Tubelis and Cavalcanti 2000;Gimenes and Anjos 2003).The response to anthropogenic factors varies among species, as some benefit from anthropic interventions and expand their populations, whereas others become locally extinct (Marini and Garcia 2005).
The eared dove, Zenaida auriculata (Des Murs, 1847) (Columbidae) is a gregarious bird that can form large flocks and has a wide geographic distribution, ranging from the Caribbean to Patagonia (Sick 1997).It occurs in practically all of the Brazilian territory, but is uncommon in the Amazon biome, except for the subspecies Z. a. marajoensis (present in the northwest of Pará state to the north of Maranhão state), Z. a. jessieae (found in the region of the lower Amazonas River), and Z. a. stenura (distributed from Colombia to Suriname and down to the northern tip of Brazil) (Pinto 1978).The species is preferentially granivorous, has low sensitivity to environmental disturbances, lives in fields and open formations, and its presence has been strongly associated with damage to crops (Silva and Guadagnin 2018).It is also found in several Brazilian urban centers (Fontoura and Orsi 2014).
In recent decades, there have been increasing sightings of the eared dove where it had not been recorded before in the Amazon region, in new open areas due to deforestation (eBird 2020; Táxeus 2020; WikiAves 2020).Here we provide ACTA AMAZONICA a review of records of Z. auriculata in the Brazilian Amazon documented in community science platforms.
We searched digital citizen science platforms (WikiAves, eBird, and Táxeus), which are large databases of records of Brazilian species by both academics and laymen, to find previously undocumented appearances of the species in the Amazon biome.The search period was 1982 to 2020, using Zenaida auriculata as search term.Subsequently, we filtered the records for locations in the Amazon biome.For eBird and Táxeus, we included the records of the lists that contained the species.In Wikiaves, we analyzed the sound and photographic database of the species and excluded erroneous records (species misidentified as Z. auriculata).To assess the relation between bird records and deforested areas, the QGIS software was used to overlay the location points of Z. auriculata on a map of accumulated deforestation between 1988 and 2019 in the Amazon biome, provided by the National Institute for Space Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais -INPE).
We identified 804 records of Z. auriculata in the Brazilian Amazon, the oldest in 1982 and most recent in 2020.Of these, 259 records (32.2%) were from areas where the species was not previously known to occur (IUCN 2021).The data compilation showed that all records of Z. auriculata outside its known distribution area occurred in deforested areas (Figure 1), and most of them occurred in the last six years of the survey period (2014 -2020) (Table 1).Ranvaud et al. (2001) demonstrated how Z. auriculata easily takes advantage of agricultural crops, adapting its diet to different types of grains.This is possibly the reason why populations of Z. auriculata are dispersing to deforested areas, which are, to a large extent, being occupied by crops such as soybean and maize.Corn and soybean seedlings are among the main food items of the species (Okawa et al. 1999;Ranvaud et al. 2001;Cândido Jr. et al. 2008).
There are populations of Z. auriculata that migrate seasonally from southern states such as São Paulo and Paraná to the Brazilian northeastern region (Bucher 1982;Souza et al. 2007;Oliveira et al. 2016), which suggests that other populations can establish migratory routes to the Amazon if they finds favorable conditions there.
Zenaida auriculata is a species with great adaptive plasticity, benefiting from anthropization due to its ability to live in cities or agricultural landscapes (Cândido Jr. et al. 2008), two scenarios that result from deforestation.This may explain how this species has been expanding its distribution and colonizing different areas of the Brazilian Amazon, given the drastic changes that have taken place in this biome.Given that most records are quite recent, future monitoring will determine whether these populations establish themselves permanently in these areas, e.g., by strating to reproduce.Finally, we emphasize the relevance of data provided by citizen science platforms in determining the range expansion of Z. auriculata.These platforms can be a valuable source of information for the monitoring of bird distribution, particularly in scenarios of rapid environmental.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Records of eared dove, Zenaida auriculata in the Amazon biome in Brazil overlayed on a map showing the accumulated deforestation in the region from 1982 to 2020.Geographic coordinate system: Datum Sirgas (2000); Cartographic sources: IBGE (2020), INPE (2021), IUCN (2021).This figure is in color in the electronic version.

Table 1 .
Records of eared dove (Zenaida auriculata) in the Brazilian Amazon in three digital citizen science platforms.* = locality in area not previously registered as occurrence area of the species according to IUCN (2021).