Haileselasie Tsegazeabe Hadush
College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Department of Biology, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia.
Tigray Biological and Biodiversity Association (TBA), Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia.
Heliyon. 2023 Jun 9;9(6):e17110. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17110. eCollection 2023 Jun.
Published accounts of the conservation of biodiversity indicate that understanding patterns of species distribution and richness is crucial. However, what drives patterns of species composition in a landscape remains debatable. I examined the relationship between limnological characteristics of reservoirs, morpho-edaphic variables, biological variables, and patterns of bird species richness and distribution. Six limnological, three morpho-edaphic variables, and biological variables were recorded for 35 reservoirs and analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques. To investigate the most important explanatory factors influencing avian species richness and their distribution, redundancy analysis (RDA) was used. A total of 85 bird species from 54 genera, with a mean species richness 14.23 ± 6.72 (mean ± standard deviation) per reservoir, were recorded. The RDA analysis identified two significant RDA axes, and 34.4% of the variation in species richness is explained by environmental variation (R = 0.34375; P < 0.001). Bird species richness was positively correlated with the surface area of reservoirs. I showed here that reservoir size and environmental heterogeneity were the important features that affect bird species richness, thus providing an important insight into the ecological relationship between waterbird species richness and the limnological characteristics of reservoirs. The strong positive correlation between species richness and both size and environmental variables underscores the importance of these reservoir features in the management of wildlife conservation. Large, environmentally heterogeneous reservoirs can support more species than small, environmentally homogeneous reservoirs because large, environmentally heterogeneous limnetic ecosystems can provide different resources for nesting, foraging, and roosting habitats for a diversified bird species. The result here also plays a role towards strengthening our knowledge of aquatic bird ecology and the natural history of African-Eurasian Migratory waterbirds.
已发表的关于生物多样性保护的报告表明，了解物种分布和丰富度模式至关重要。然而，是什么驱动了景观中物种组成的模式仍存在争议。我研究了水库的湖沼学特征、形态-土壤变量、生物变量与鸟类物种丰富度和分布模式之间的关系。记录了35个水库的6个湖沼学、3个形态-土壤变量和生物变量，并采用多元统计技术进行分析。为了研究影响鸟类物种丰富度及其分布的最重要解释因素，使用了冗余分析（RDA）。共记录了来自54个属的85种鸟类，每个水库的平均物种丰富度为14.23±6.72（平均值±标准差）。RDA分析确定了两个显著的RDA轴，物种丰富度变化的34.4%由环境变化解释（R = 0.34375；P < 0.001）。鸟类物种丰富度与水库表面积呈正相关。我在此表明，水库大小和环境异质性是影响鸟类物种丰富度的重要特征，从而为水鸟物种丰富度与水库湖沼学特征之间的生态关系提供了重要见解。物种丰富度与大小和环境变量之间的强正相关强调了这些水库特征在野生动物保护管理中的重要性。大型、环境异质的水库比小型、环境均质的水库能支持更多物种，因为大型、环境异质的湖泊生态系统可以为多样化的鸟类物种提供不同的筑巢、觅食和栖息资源。这里的结果也有助于加强我们对水鸟生态学和非洲-欧亚迁徙水鸟自然史的认识。
