Materials and Methods
We re-censused the avian community in a 97-ha mature forest floodplain
plot located at Cocha Cashu Biological Station, in Manu National Park in
southeastern Peru, following the methodology of the original 1982 census
(Terborgh et al. 1990). Given the hyper-diverse bird community at
this location, these censuses required a variety of sampling methods to
estimate species abundances and biomass on the plot. Estimating
abundances for an entire hyper-diverse bird community requires a massive
effort that logistically precludes regular periodic censuses. Over the
course of the 2018 and 2019 field seasons, 16 different individuals
(including two of the original census authors) contributed to data
collection using the census approaches outlined below. In addition,
several individuals re-digitized the original territory maps of each
species (requiring ~320 hours). We replicated all of the
original census methods to derive comparable estimates of abundance for
the majority of species found on the plot. In what follows we describe
each of these methods in detail. Scientific names of birds follow the
latest taxonomy from the South American Classification Committee.