Ecological Status Interactions for Assessing Bird Diversity in Relation to a Heterogeneous Landscape Structure

Abstract

Avian diversity is used to assess the functionality of diverse types of habitats around Salt Lake Djendli, Northeast Algeria. The landscape is stratified into five habitat types in a gradient from wetland to forested mountains. Bird species found in these habitats can be classified into four ecological groups with decreasing degrees of aquatic specialisation and increasing forest specialisation. For each surveyed species, five ecological status were assigned. Overall, there was lower species richness in urban areas compared to other "natural" habitats. Birds have a biogeographical affinity to the western Palaearctic according to the dominant faunal types. Interactions of ecological status with phenological traits reveal that water birds are different from non-aquatic species because most of them are migrants. Moreover, overall, there is no worrying conservation status for surveyed birds. Bird diet is dependent on the ecological status that differentiate bird groups from each other due to differences in the food resources of the habitats they frequent. Phenological categories tend to link together birds of urban and open-lands. These two groups are affected by seasonal human activities. Our findings emphasise the importance of using combinations within the birds' ecological status, which would give information on the actual state of avifauna. This approach is relevant for future programmes and conservation actions.

Diet of the Little Owl (Athene noctua) during the pre-reproductive period in a semi-arid Mediterranean region

“…mainly consists of plains characterized by large fields of seasonal cereal crops (Durum Wheat Triticum durum and Barley Hordeum vulgare) with a mixture of patchy landscapes including brackish and fresh wetlands (Sebkha Djendli and Lac Boulhilet), montane habitats (Bouarif, Lafdjoudj), and country towns (Chemora, Boulhilet, El-Kouachia). The local population is mainly engaged in agriculture, including cereal cultivation, extensive livestock (sheep, goat, and cattle), and intensive poultry farming (Bensizerara et al 2013;Neffar, Chenchouni, and Si Bachir 2014).…”

“…Athene noctua saharae is widespread in inland and Saharan regions while Athene noctua glaux is limited to coastal regions (Isenmann and Moali 2000;Guezoul et al 2013). In the northeast of the country (Aures region), there are about 26 raptors in which six are owls including the Little Owl (Chenchouni 2011;Bensizerara et al 2013). Previous studies on the diet of owls in Algeria have primarily focused on the following owl species: the Little Owl, A. noctua (Baziz et al 2005;Sekour et al 2010Sekour et al , 2011 and the Barn Owl Tyto alba (Sekour et al 2011), the Tawny Owl Strix aluco (Hamdine et al 1999), the Longeared Owl Asio otus (Sekour et al 2010), the Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus (Djilali, Sekour, and Bissati 2012), and the Desert Eagle Owl Bubo ascalaphus (Sellami and Belkacemi 1989;Boukhemza, Hamdine, and Thevenot 1994;Biche et al 2001;Sekour et al 2010).…”

Studies on avian diversity of banda university of agriculture and technology campus, Banda, Uttar pradesh, India

“…The relative values of different habitats can be assessed by investigating the diversity of birds of those sites. 2 In present time avian diversity has been decreasing due to destruction of habitat and human induced disturbances. Random destruction of natural habitats by cutting nesting trees and foraging plants for commercial use of woods and lands are the main factor responsible for narrow down in avian foraging habitat and their nesting sites.…”

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“…The adjacent land use types of this area includes scattered and low intensity urban within extended rainfed cereal crops of barley, durum and bread wheat. The nearby mountains are covered by open shrub-forest vegetation where the main tree species are Juniperus phoenicea, Quercus ilex and Olea oleaster (Bensizerara et al, 2013).…”