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Restriction of Herbivorous Waterbird Distributions in the Middle and Lower Yangtze River Floodplain in View of Hydrological Isolation

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Abstract

Effects of hydrological isolation on species distribution is an active research area in biodiversity protection and management. Lakes in the middle and lower Yangtze River floodplains are irreplaceable wintering grounds for waterbirds on the East Asia – Australasian Flyway. However, more and more lakes in this region have become isolated from the main channel of the Yangtze River and the hydrological connectivity between these lakes and the Yangtze River is deteriorating. This study aims to verify whether herbivorous waterbirds abundance is associated with lake connectivity using synchronous survey data in 23 lakes for the period of 2004–2015. The habitat diversity index, the irreplaceability index and waterbird density were used to evaluate the impact of lake connectivity on herbivorous waterbirds distribution. Our results showed that herbivorous waterbirds distribution was restricted to several better connected lakes although the total numbers of herbivorous waterbird in this region increased over this period. The irreplaceability index of herbivorous waterbirds in connected lakes was significantly higher than that in medium-to-highly isolated lakes. The density of herbivorous waterbirds was lower in highly isolated lakes; but there was an increasing gradient towards the well-connected lakes. Our study demonstrated that hydrological isolation had a significantly negative effect on herbivorous waterbirds.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41171030, 41471088, 41561105) and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Thanks to Dr. Huan Zhang and Dr. Yifei Jia for joining the discussion of this manuscript. We also thank Dr. Minjet Loo, whose comments and suggestions greatly assisted us in improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modelling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Beijing, 100101, People’s Republic of China

    Shaoxia Xia, Yu Liu &  XiuboYu

  2. School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Yuyu Wang

  3. Living Yangtze Program, World Wide Fund for Nature China, Wuhan, 430060, People’s Republic of China

    Gang Lei & Jinyu Lei

  4. Science Division, Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney, NSW, 1232, Australia

    Li Wen

  5. School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, 330027, People’s Republic of China

    Yangming Zhou

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  1. Shaoxia Xia
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  2. Yuyu Wang
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  3. Gang Lei
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  4. Yu Liu
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  5. Jinyu Lei
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  7. Li Wen
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  8. Yangming Zhou
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Correspondence to XiuboYu or Li Wen.

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Xia, S., Wang, Y., Lei, G. et al. Restriction of Herbivorous Waterbird Distributions in the Middle and Lower Yangtze River Floodplain in View of Hydrological Isolation. Wetlands 37, 79–88 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-016-0841-9

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