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Avian Research 2019, 10(1): 21 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40657-019-0162-9
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Bird diversity and waterbird habitat preferences in relation to wetland restoration at Dianchi Lake, south-west China

Show Author's Information Kang Luo1,2,3,4,  Zhaolu Wu2 ( ),  Haotian Bai2,  Zijiang Wang2
CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xishuangbanna 666303, Yunnan, China
Institute of Ecology and Geobotany, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China
Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xishuangbanna 666303, Yunnan, China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Keywords:
Conservation, Shorebird, Dianchi Lake, Waterbird, Habitat utilization
Cite this article:
Luo K, Wu Z, Bai H, et al. Bird diversity and waterbird habitat preferences in relation to wetland restoration at Dianchi Lake, south-west China. Avian Research, 2019, 10(1): 21. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40657-019-0162-9
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Abstract Full text About this article
Background

Restoration projects have been implemented worldwide to mitigate the adverse effects of the loss and degradation of wetland habitats. Much research has been carried out on the impacts on birds of wetland restoration and management projects in China. Studies have mainly investigated central or coastal wetlands, while inland wetlands in remote areas have been much less studied. We focused on examining the response of wild birds to wetland restoration in Dianchi Lake, south-west China.

Methods

The line transect method was performed at 26 sampling plots. Three of these were in the city, and to acquire all wild bird data 23 plots were located every 2-8 km along the shore of Dianchi Lake, between December 2011 and November 2013. We collected all related bird records by searching the available literature, articles, newspapers and records of birdwatchers to compare species variation before and after implementation of wetland restoration. To measure the relationships between waterbird assemblages and habitat structures, we used canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) to pair the main matrix of bird assemblages with a second matrix of habitat variables.

Results

We recorded 182 bird species belonging to 51 families and 17 orders. Of the species, 42 were new records for Kunming City and 20 were new records for Yunnan Province. Ten waterbird species were found to have disappeared from the shore of Dianchi Lake. CCA results indicated that waterbirds could be divided into four categories based on their habitat preference: synanthropic (wintering gulls), special habitat (shorebirds), semi-natural (wintering coots and ducks) and disturbance-tolerant (resident) species.

Conclusions

Our study is the first to consider the entire wild bird community throughout the year and discuss the species variation before and after wetland restoration projects launched for Dianchi Lake. Distinct habitat requirements of different waterbird groups were detected in our study, suggesting different types of restoration and management should be implemented.


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Abstract
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About this article

Bird diversity and waterbird habitat preferences in relation to wetland restoration at Dianchi Lake, south-west China

Show Author's information Kang Luo1,2,3,4, Zhaolu Wu2 ( ), Haotian Bai2, Zijiang Wang2
CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xishuangbanna 666303, Yunnan, China
Institute of Ecology and Geobotany, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China
Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xishuangbanna 666303, Yunnan, China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Abstract

Background

Restoration projects have been implemented worldwide to mitigate the adverse effects of the loss and degradation of wetland habitats. Much research has been carried out on the impacts on birds of wetland restoration and management projects in China. Studies have mainly investigated central or coastal wetlands, while inland wetlands in remote areas have been much less studied. We focused on examining the response of wild birds to wetland restoration in Dianchi Lake, south-west China.

Methods

The line transect method was performed at 26 sampling plots. Three of these were in the city, and to acquire all wild bird data 23 plots were located every 2-8 km along the shore of Dianchi Lake, between December 2011 and November 2013. We collected all related bird records by searching the available literature, articles, newspapers and records of birdwatchers to compare species variation before and after implementation of wetland restoration. To measure the relationships between waterbird assemblages and habitat structures, we used canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) to pair the main matrix of bird assemblages with a second matrix of habitat variables.

Results

We recorded 182 bird species belonging to 51 families and 17 orders. Of the species, 42 were new records for Kunming City and 20 were new records for Yunnan Province. Ten waterbird species were found to have disappeared from the shore of Dianchi Lake. CCA results indicated that waterbirds could be divided into four categories based on their habitat preference: synanthropic (wintering gulls), special habitat (shorebirds), semi-natural (wintering coots and ducks) and disturbance-tolerant (resident) species.

Conclusions

Our study is the first to consider the entire wild bird community throughout the year and discuss the species variation before and after wetland restoration projects launched for Dianchi Lake. Distinct habitat requirements of different waterbird groups were detected in our study, suggesting different types of restoration and management should be implemented.

Keywords: Conservation, Shorebird, Dianchi Lake, Waterbird, Habitat utilization

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Publication history

Received: 19 September 2018
Accepted: 31 May 2019
Published: 06 June 2019
Issue date: January 2019

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© The Author(s) 2019.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

We thank Doyle McKey from Université de Montpellier, Bo Wang from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Christos Mammides from Guangxi University and Donglai Li from Liaoning University for their generous help in language editing and insightful comments about the manuscript. We thank senior schoolmates Jianyun Gao and Dongdong Su for their enormous help in this study during the pre-surveys, PhD senior schoolmate Longyuan He for his kind help in mapping, Prof. Zhiming Zhang for his great help in the data analyses, faculty of the Kunming Bird Association for their help in the field investigation and memberships in the QQ groups of Students union of Birdwatching, and Yunnan Wild Bird Association and Young Ornithologists for their help in identifying some species.

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