Historical synthesis of the avifauna from the Rio Sao Francisco basin in Minas Gerais, Brazil

The Rio Sao Francisco hydrographic basin (SFHB) is the third largest river basin in Brazil and the only totally inserted within the country. The Rio Sao Francisco crosses the state of Minas Gerais in the direction southwest/north/northeast along c. 1,260 km, or about 47% of its total length. From its headwaters in the Serra da Canastra National Park, the river and its tributaries cross three major phytogeographical domains in Minas Gerais: the cerrado, the Atlantic Forest and the caatinga. This paper presents the avifauna of the upper and middle portions of the Rio Sao Francisco in Minas Gerais. Our data is the result of several years of field work by the authors, as well as an extensive research of the available literature on the avifauna from the headwaters of the Rio Sao Francisco, in Sao Roque de Minas, until the boundaries with the states of Goias, to the northwest, and Bahia, to the north. We recorded a total of 614 birds in the Minas Gerais portion of the SFHB, included in 73 families and 25 orders. This corresponds to approximately 79% of the birds recorded in Minas Gerais, and approximately 33% of the Brazilian avifauna. We also highlight that 12% of the recorded species are considered threatened or near threatened at the state, national or global levels. The data presented here demonstrates the high importance of the Minas Gerais portion of the SFHB for bird conservation in Brazil.