Community Structure and Species Diversity of Birds at Ramshir Dam Lake in Winter and Spring 2015

The wetlands of Iran in winter and spring at west Asia are sensitive habitats for survival of waterbirds. For this reason, community structure of waterbirds, terrestrial birds, waders and wading birds were counted at Shohadaye Ramshir Dam Lake in winter and spring 2015 by direct observation with binocular and telescope by total count method. Ramshir Dam was built in 1998 on Jarahi River. Area of the lake is 200 Hectare. During 6 months, 38 species of 19 families of waterbirds and terrestrial birds were counted. Terrestrial birds with 23 species and 71% of the population against 4 species with 5% population of waterbirds and 11 species with 24% population of waders and wading birds were dominant. Highest number of birds were counted in January (436 individuals) of 32 species with a density of 2.32 birds per hectare, and lowest number was in January (260 individuals) of 28 species with a density 1.3 birds per hectare. Highest Shanon-Wiener, Margalef and Simpson diversity were in January 3.142, 5.549 and 0.9413 respectively, and lowest of the Shannon–Wiener and Simpson indexes were 3.522 and 0.1389 in July respectively, and Margalef indexes was 3.895 in July. Highest evenness was 0.1273 in January and lowest was 0.8349 in July. 11 species include: one waterbird species, 3 wading birds and 7 terrestrial species have been bred in the wetland in spring 2015.  Therefore, ecological function of Ramshir reservoir is vice versa of other inland wetlands and provides the requirement of terrestrial birds. Comparison between bird's community structure, number of species and species diversity of Ramshir dam wetland with other natural inland wetlands and coastal wetlands showed that natural wetlands can't replace by artificial wetlands, but can support the natural wetlands in crisis times.