Facultad de Ciencias del Mar, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Paseo Claussen s/n Colonia Los Pinos, Mazatlán, Sinaloa 82000, Mexico.
Bird Ecology Lab, Instituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Campus Isla Teja, 5090000, Valdivia, Chile; Estación Experimental Quempillén, Chiloé, Universidad Austral de Chile, Ancud, Chile.
J Environ Manage. 2020 May 15;262:110290. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110290. Epub 2020 Feb 21.
How to improve habitat quality for wildlife is of particular importance in areas dedicated to food production, due to increasing pressures of global demands associated to human population growth. Semi-intensive aquaculture ponds can provide a potentially important foraging habitat for migratory shorebirds throughout the non-breeding season. Therefore, understanding the availability of benthic invertebrates in aquaculture ponds will help to identify proper management decisions for shorebird conservation. We used an exclosure experiment during the first three days after shrimp harvesting at semi-intensive aquaculture ponds in north-west Mexico to assess shorebird predation on benthic invertebrates. We found that shorebird predation did not deplete total benthic invertebrate density (particularly polychaete worms), but significantly affected the prey size distributions and biomass in the ponds during a short-time window of just three days. Shorebirds removed 0.6 g ash-free dry weight m, equivalent to 43% of the initial biomass and showed high selectivity for polychaetes larger than >40 mm as prey, potentially explaining the absence of large polychaetes at the end of the experiment. This depletion was the likely cause of the daily decrease observed in overall density of foraging shorebirds at recently harvested ponds. These results can serve to identify management actions that allow an extended use of semi-intensive aquaculture ponds as foraging sites for migratory shorebirds during the non-breeding season, with potential applications to develop standards for a friendlier aquaculture management.
如何提高野生动物的栖息地质量在专门用于粮食生产的地区尤为重要，因为与人口增长相关的全球需求压力不断增加。半集约化水产养殖池塘可为迁徙性涉禽在非繁殖季节提供潜在的重要觅食栖息地。因此，了解水产养殖池塘底栖无脊椎动物的可用性将有助于确定保护涉禽的适当管理决策。我们在墨西哥西北部的半集约化水产养殖池塘收获虾后的头三天使用了一个围栏实验，以评估涉禽对底栖无脊椎动物的捕食作用。我们发现，涉禽的捕食并没有耗尽底栖无脊椎动物的总密度（特别是多毛类蠕虫），但在短短三天的时间内，显著影响了池塘中的猎物大小分布和生物量。涉禽移除了 0.6 克灰分干重 m，相当于初始生物量的 43%，并且对大于 >40 毫米的多毛类蠕虫作为猎物表现出很高的选择性，这可能解释了实验结束时大型多毛类蠕虫缺失的原因。这种消耗很可能是最近收获的池塘中觅食涉禽总体密度每天下降的原因。这些结果可用于确定管理措施，允许在非繁殖季节将半集约化水产养殖池塘作为迁徙性涉禽的觅食地延长使用，这可能有助于制定更友好的水产养殖管理标准。
