Skip to content

African Hoopoe Occupancy Showed No Clear Environmental Pattern While Fork-tailed Drongos Were More Common on Rocky Soils

African Hoopoe in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa
Research · Ecology

A passive-acoustic study in north-central Namibia found no clear relationship between African hoopoe (Upupa africana) occupancy and the land-management, soil or vegetation variables tested, while fork-tailed drongo (Dicrurus adsimilis) occupancy was strongly associated with soil type. The study used eight functionally different bird species to test whether automated sound monitoring could reveal ecological variation across a dryland landscape.

Researchers placed autonomous recorders at 60 locations across mixed-use farmland, an established game reserve and farmland being converted to a game reserve. BirdNET detections were manually checked before the researchers modelled species occupancy against land management, vegetation, soil and remotely sensed vegetation greenness.

No clear environmental pattern in African hoopoes

African hoopoes were detected at 45% of sites. For this species, the null model was best supported, meaning none of the measured environmental variables clearly improved the explanation of where hoopoes occurred. This does not show that the birds were literally evenly distributed; rather, the study did not identify a strong occupancy response to the variables it tested.

Fork-tailed drongos were associated with rocky soils

Fork-tailed drongos were detected at 26% of sites and showed a different pattern. Their occupancy was higher in areas dominated by Leptosols and Regosols — generally shallow, weakly developed soils over rocky substrates. The authors note that this may reflect the woodland structure associated with those soils rather than a direct response to the soil itself.

Acoustic monitoring captured species-specific responses

For five of the eight focal species, occupancy was clearly related to environmental variables. The authors therefore argue that functionally selected bird species, passive acoustic monitoring and automated call recognition can help reveal ecological differences across dryland landscapes, while also emphasizing that the approach still depends on which species can be detected reliably by acoustic classifiers.

Sources and image credit

  1. Becker, F. K., & Wood, C. M. (2026). Using functionally representative bird species and passive acoustic monitoring to model ecological variation across a land use mosaic in a dryland system.Primary open-access research article first published 3 September 2026. Eight focal bird species were monitored acoustically at 60 sites across three land-management units in north-central Namibia. African hoopoe had naïve occupancy of 0.45 and was best supported by the null occupancy model, while fork-tailed drongo had naïve occupancy of 0.26 and higher occupancy on shallow Leptosol/Regosol soils over rocky substrates. The authors note that the drongo pattern may reflect associated vegetation structure rather than soil directly.

Image: African hoopoe in the Nossob Riverbed, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa, 20 November 2018. Photo: Bernard DUPONT / Wikimedia Commons / Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0. Representative focal-species image; not a study bird. · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source

About this content: This story was produced with AI assistance within an editorial workflow developed by Wildlife Vagabond. Editorial responsibility remains with Wildlife Vagabond.How AI is used

Ecology

SPECIES IN THIS STORY

Species in this story

African Hoopoe Upupa africana Explore species Fork-tailed Drongo Dicrurus adsimilis Explore species

Independent research and conservation news archive

Did you find this information useful?

Wildlife Vagabond is independently built and maintained. Voluntary support helps cover source verification, hosting and continued work on research and conservation news.

Support Wildlife Vagabond

The news archive will remain freely available.