Ahmed Shakeel, Soorae Pritpal Singh, Hammadi Eissa Al, Zaabi Rashed Al, Saji Anitha, Khan Shahid B, Sakkir Sabitha, Ali Ahmed, Khaliq Imran, Gubiani Robert E, Javed Sálim, Omari Khaldoun Al, Dhaheri Shaikha Al
Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, P.O. Box 45553, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Department of Ecology, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), Überlandtrasse 113, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland.
Saudi J Biol Sci. 2022 Mar;29(3):1737-1746. doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2021.10.056. Epub 2021 Oct 27.
Biodiversity is under enormous pressure from multiple threats including climate change, land use change, habitat alterations and hunting pressure. One way to ease this pressure on biodiversity and to mitigate the effects of above-mentioned threats, is to establish protected areas. Importance of protected increases many folds in regions that are considered as biodiversity poor regions i.e. deserts. Protected areas have long been a major pillar of biodiversity conservation strategies; the Houbara Protected Area (HPA) is one of the 13 terrestrial protected areas in Abu Dhabi Emirate officially declared in 2017. However, no information regarding the status of biodiversity in the HPA has been communicated to the research fraternity. During the present study, surveys were conducted to fill this gap. The survey area was divided in to 50 grids of 5 × 5 km and monitoring surveys were undertaken from January to December 2016. A total of 14 bi-monthly to monthly surveys were conducted within HPA and 196 species of different taxonomical groups were recorded. A year-long survey yielded highly diversified fauna and flora from 19 different habitat types (H) 1.32, (E) 2.28, Shannon Diversity Index). We looked at the influence of habitat breadth and temperature on the species richness and abundance, results shows that in desert setup heterogeneity of habitat is not an important factor in maintaining the biodiversity as total number of individuals as well as species were similar in the grids that have different number of habitat types (df = 34.3, t = -0.472, P = 0.640). However, we did find a positive impact of mean monthly temperature on species richness (df = 154, t = 2.53, P = 0.012). Our study highlights the importance of temperature in driving species abundance and richness in protected area. Abundance and species richness are similar in protected areas indicating that protection is allowing species to explore the heterogenous habitats. Overall, we can conclude that protection is beneficial for species.
生物多样性正面临来自多种威胁的巨大压力，这些威胁包括气候变化、土地利用变化、栖息地改变和捕猎压力。缓解生物多样性面临的这种压力并减轻上述威胁影响的一种方法是建立保护区。在被视为生物多样性匮乏地区（即沙漠）的区域，保护区的重要性会成倍增加。长期以来，保护区一直是生物多样性保护战略的主要支柱；胡巴拉保护区（HPA）是2017年正式宣布的阿布扎比酋长国13个陆地保护区之一。然而，关于胡巴拉保护区生物多样性状况的信息尚未传达给研究界。在本研究中，进行了调查以填补这一空白。调查区域被划分为50个5×5公里的网格，并于2016年1月至12月进行了监测调查。在胡巴拉保护区内共进行了14次每两个月至每月一次的调查，记录了196种不同分类群的物种。为期一年的调查从19种不同的栖息地类型中得出了高度多样化的动植物群（香农多样性指数：H为1.32，E为2.28）。我们研究了栖息地宽度和温度对物种丰富度和丰度的影响，结果表明，在沙漠环境中，栖息地的异质性并非维持生物多样性的重要因素，因为在具有不同栖息地类型数量的网格中，个体总数和物种数量相似（自由度=34.3，t=-0.472，P=0.640）。然而，我们确实发现月平均温度对物种丰富度有积极影响（自由度=154，t=2.53，P=0.012）。我们的研究强调了温度在推动保护区物种丰度和丰富度方面的重要性。保护区内的丰度和物种丰富度相似，这表明保护措施使物种能够探索异质栖息地。总体而言，我们可以得出结论，保护对物种有益。
