BIRD COMMUNITIES IN TRANSITION: THE LAGO GURI ISLANDS

We report on the bird communities of a set of 12 7-yr-old forested land-bridge islands in Lago Guri, a 4300 km2 hydroelectric impoundment in the State of Bolivar, Venezuela. Birds were censused on all islands and at mainland control sites by spot mapping in 1993, and via point counts in 1995. Instead of orderly “nested sets” of species on landmasses of graded size, the species composition of small (≈1 ha) and medium (11–12 ha) islands was highly...