Diversity and population size of birds

Document Type : Biodiversity

Authors

1 Department of Environment, Faculty of Fishery and Environmental Science, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, P.O. Box:49138-15739, Gorgan, Iran

2 Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, P.O.Box: 4111 Karaj, Iran

3 Khorasan-e Razavi Provincial Office of the Department of the Environment, P.O. Box: 91735-554, Mashhad, Iran

4 Guilan Provincial Office of the Department of the Environment, P.O. Box: 1433, Rasht, Iran

Abstract

* Corresponding Author’s email: sayyad.shaykhi@yahoo.com





We identified birds and compared the diversity of birds between different habitats in Naqadeh, North Western Iran. Diversity and number of birds were monitored in four main habitats including semi-arid steppes, wetlands, agriculture and high mountains habitats from July 2010 to June 2012. Different habitats were also compared in terms of Species Diversity indices to evaluate relative importance of each habitat for birds. Overall 140 bird species were identified in the study areas, 53% of them were terrestrial and 47% depended on aquatic habitats. Among identified birds, 31 species have national/international conservation concerns indicating the importance of the study areas for threatened species. Among birds identified, 66 species (47.1%) were breeding birds including summer visitor or resident species among them was. Bittern (Botaurus stellaris) as the first breeding record for this province. The highest values of Simpson and Shanon-Wiener were found in semi-arid steppes (0.934 and 4.208) and wetland (0.872 and 3.457) respectively, both on them occurring in summer season. By contrast, the highest values of evenness indices of Camargo and Simpson were found in winter in agriculture (0.857 and 0.943) and high mountains (0.667 and 0.701) areas. The highest similarity coefficient (Jaccard index) was 0.685 and was found to be between semi-arid steppes and agricultural habitats. Not surprisingly, aquatic habitats supported the highest number of birds reaching a maximum of 10300 (75.1%). Present study implies that habitats around Naqadeh are important for bird fauna and further investigations as well as conversation measured should be undertaken to protect habitats and birds especially in semi-arid steppes. 

Keywords

Journal of Animal Environment
Volume 6, Issue 3 - Serial Number 3
November 2014
Pages 53-68

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