Ma Liming, Li Xinhai, Zhai Tianqing, Zhang Yazu, Song Kai, Holyoak Marcel, Sun Yuehua
School of Life Sciences, Hebei University, 180 Wusi East Road, Baoding 050024, China.
Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1-5 Beichen West Road, Beijing 100101, China.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Sep 7;11(9):2626. doi: 10.3390/ani11092626.
The number of breeding pairs of crested ibis () in Hanzhong, China has recovered remarkably from 2 to 511 from 1981 to 2019. Although the crested ibis has been closely monitored, the habitat preference of the bird has not been well studied despite the extensive increase in abundance. We used nest site data from the past 39 years and 30 environmental variables to develop species distribution models for each year. We applied random forest to select important environmental variables, and used logistic regressions to quantify the changes in habitat preferences in 39 years, taking into account the effects of interaction and quadratic terms. We found that six variables had strong impacts on nest site selection. The interaction term of rice paddies and waterbodies, and the quadratic term of precipitation of the wettest quarter of the year were the most important correlates of nest presence. Human impact at nest sites changed from low to high as birds increased their use of ancestral habitats with abundant rice paddies. We concluded that during the population recovery, the crested ibises retained their dependence on wetlands, yet moved from remote areas to populated rural regions where food resources had recovered due to the ban of pesticide use.
1981年至2019年间，中国汉中朱鹮（）的繁殖对数量从2对显著恢复到511对。尽管朱鹮受到密切监测，但尽管其数量大幅增加，这种鸟类的栖息地偏好却未得到充分研究。我们利用过去39年的筑巢地点数据和30个环境变量，为每年建立物种分布模型。我们应用随机森林来选择重要的环境变量，并使用逻辑回归来量化39年中栖息地偏好的变化，同时考虑交互作用和二次项的影响。我们发现六个变量对筑巢地点选择有强烈影响。稻田和水体的交互项，以及一年中最湿润季度降水量的二次项是与巢穴存在最密切相关的因素。随着鸟类对有大量稻田的祖传栖息地利用增加，巢穴地点的人类影响从低变高。我们得出结论，在种群恢复过程中，朱鹮保留了对湿地的依赖，但从偏远地区转移到了人口密集的农村地区，这些地区由于农药使用禁令，食物资源已经恢复。
