Ponds support higher bird diversity than rice paddies in a hilly agricultural area in Japan
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Ponds support higher bird diversity than rice paddies in a hilly agricultural area in Japan Shota Deguchi1,2
•
Naoki Katayama3 • Yosuke Tomioka4 • Hideo Miguchi4
Received: 4 August 2019 / Revised: 16 July 2020 / Accepted: 30 July 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The aim of the present study was to evaluate bird diversity (richness, abundance, and community composition) in three types of artificial wetlands (rice paddies, carp aquaculture ponds, and farm ponds for irrigation) while considering bird habitat groups and seasons and to reveal the environmental characteristics of wetlands (e.g. wetland type, water depth, and vegetation cover) associated with bird richness and abundance. Bird and environmental characteristics were surveyed in 30 sites (10 sites per wetland type) in the hilly agricultural area of central Japan, considering four bird groups (open-land, wetland, bush, and woodland) and three seasons (breeding, migrating, and wintering). Bird richness of each group was the highest in farm ponds, followed by carp ponds and then rice paddies, throughout the year, except for bush and woodland species. Abundance levels of openland, woodland, and total species were significantly higher in farm ponds than in rice paddies and carp ponds in the wintering season (and also in migrating season for open-land species). Effects of wetland type, wetland area, vegetation cover on water surface, and slope of bank to bird species and abundance differed among bird groups. There were no differences in community compositions among wetland types, although significant differences were apparent among seasons. Therefore, for bird diversity conservation in hilly agricultural areas, (1) various wetland types creating a spatial–temporal heterogeneity of environments is important, (2) preserving ponds rather than rice paddies would be effective, and (3) steeper slopes and richer vegetation cover on water surfaces should be considered for waterbirds. Keywords Aquaculture pond Bird conservation Community composition Farm pond Habitat group Season
Communicated by Karen E. Hodges. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-02002023-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Shota Deguchi [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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Biodiversity and Conservation
Introduction Wetlands play a crucial role in maintaining global biodiversity (Ramsar Convention Secretariat 2013). However, natural wetlands and their habitat quality have been drastically declining (Gibbs 2000; Zedler and Kercher 2005; Murray et al. 2014). Half of the world’s wetlands have been lost since the early twentieth century due to drainage for agriculture and urban development (Shine and Klemm 1999), and, because of this change, biodiversity in natural wetlands has suffered a worldwide reduction (Gibbs 2000; Sousa et al. 2008). In this context, the
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