Wetland characteristics affect abundance and diversity of wintering birds: A case study in South‐Western Iran

Abstract

Water availability is an important driver of bird population change, and its effects are likely to increase in coming decades under climate change. Here we assess effects of temperature, precipitation, and water area on wintering bird populations in Miyangaran Wetland in southwestern Iran. Modeling methods including, generalized linear model (GLM) and hierarchical partitioning were used to examine the relative importance of variables. The number of wintering species, inhabiting the wetland, varied among years, ranging from 10 to 48 species. The total number of wintering birds showed a significant decreasing trend. A significant increasing trend was obtained for shorebirds, while waterfowl species were significantly decreased. The GLM showed that species abundance, richness, and diversity were significantly correlated with the standardized precipitation index (SPI), annual precipitation, and normalized difference water index (NDWI). Hierarchical partitioning analysis also identified NDWI, SPI, and annual precipitation as the most important variables with average independent effects of 35, 36 (p < .01) and 17% (p < .05), respectively. Our results revealed that the water area plays a major role in determining the structure of bird diversity and abundance, affecting both waterfowl and shorebirds.

Comparison of avian species diversity and abundance in seasonally flooded wetlands in eastern part of Lake Tana, Ethiopia

“…Consequently, sh and other food resources for birds are seriously affected during the pick dry seasons which in turn affected the diversity of species. Similarly (Desta et al, 2021;Gaona et al, 2021;Malekian et al, 2022;Awash and Tekalign, 2023b) reported that Seasonal variations in the quantity of food resources and the unique seasonality of rainfall led to seasonal shifts in the quantity of birds.…”

“…Likewise, there is another bird species assessment carried out in riverine and wetland habitats (Aynalem and Bekele, 2008), (Tefera et al, 2022). Previous studies emphasized the importance of wetlands for waterbirds and pointed out that a sustainable conservation plan is of paramount to protect the degradation of wetlands (Hailu and Megersa, 2021;Dixon et al, 2021;Malekian et al, 2022;Sheta et al, 2023;Awash and Tekalign, 2023). This study includes new sites which were not addressed earlier.…”

Comparing bird sightings between grassland and marsh habitats at a rehabilitated wetland in Gauteng Province, South Africa

“…Both of these birds are water birds, using dams and other water sources for feeding and/or nesting (Hockey et al 2005) and it is therefore not surprising that they were only seen at the marshes. Water availability is known to be an important factor in determining bird population characteristics, with water area playing a particularly important role in affecting the structure of bird diversity and abundance (Malekian et al 2022). However, when creating artificial wetlands, instead of one large wetland, many smaller wetlands interspersed with more terrestrial habitats, such as the grassland sections in this study, can increase overall bird species richness by increasing landscape heterogeneity (Kačergytė et al 2021).…”