Chao-Chieh Chen Robert B. Hamilton Keith Ouchley Terry J. Spengler Wylie C. Barrow Jr. 2000 <p>Cheniers (relict beach ridges) and other habitats adjacent to ecological barriers may be&nbsp;critical linkages in the migratory pathways of long-distance migratory birds. It is important that these&nbsp;wooded habitats provide enough food and cover at the right time to support these birds’ requirements.&nbsp;To date, little attention has been given to the conservation of coastal woodlands, habitats in which en&nbsp;route migrants tend to concentrate in large numbers during migration. Because about one-third of&nbsp;North Americas ’ human population lives within 80 km of the coast, many forest-dwelling landbird&nbsp;migrants now depend on degraded native woodlands and urbanized environments for survival during&nbsp;migration. Restoration or rehabilitation of coastal woodlands, such as the cheniers of southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas, is of particular importance because of historic anthropogenic modifications,&nbsp;their limited geographic extent, and the extraordinary abundance and species richness of migratory&nbsp;birds using them during migration. In this paper, we use the Chenier Plain as a case study to discuss&nbsp;the issue of land use changes and their consequences for maintaining suitable stopover habitat. Results&nbsp;from an ongoing field study in this ecosystem indicate that most forest-dependent migratory birds are&nbsp;tolerant of at least some degradation of chenier forest during migration. However, these results reveal&nbsp;that subtle differences in vegetation composition and structure beneath the canopy of these forests,&nbsp;primarily as a result of livestock grazing and white-tailed deer overbrowsing, can result in differential&nbsp;use by some en route migrants. Species that were most affected by disturbance to the forest understory&nbsp;were early-arriving migrants, dead-leaf foragers, frugivores, and nectarivores. Given that the understory structure and regeneration of chenier forests has been so greatly reduced, and that high densities&nbsp;of nearctic-neotropical migrants tend to concentrate in cheniers during migration, restoration and re-habilitation should be conservation priorities in the Chenier Plain.</p> application/pdf en American Ornithological Society Disruption and restoration of en route habitat, a case study: The Chenier Plain article