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Do Interactions of Land Use and Climate Affect Productivity of Waterbirds and Prairie-Pothole Wetlands?

  • Wildlife and Climate Change
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Abstract

Availability of aquatic invertebrates on migration and breeding areas influences recruitment of ducks and shorebirds. In wetlands of Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), aquatic invertebrate production primarily is driven by interannual fluctuations of water levels in response to wet-dry cycles in climate. However, this understanding comes from studying basins that are minimally impacted by agricultural landscape modifications. In the past 100–150 years, a large proportion of wetlands within the PPR have been altered; often water was drained from smaller to larger wetlands at lower elevations creating consolidated, interconnected basins. Here I present a case study and I hypothesize that large basins receiving inflow from consolidation drainage have reduced water-level fluctuations in response to climate cycles than those in undrained landscapes, resulting in relatively stable wetlands that have lower densities of invertebrate forage for ducks and shorebirds and also less foraging habitat, especially for shorebirds. Furthermore, stable water-levels and interconnected basins may favor introduced or invasive species (e.g., cattail [Typha spp.] or fish) because native communities “evolved” in a dynamic and isolated system. Accordingly, understanding interactions between water-level fluctuations and landscape modifications is a prerequisite step to modeling effects of climate change on wetland hydrology and productivity and concomitant recruitment of waterbirds.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Alan Afton, Andrea Anteau, Bob Clark, Chip Euliss, Robert Gleason, and Gary Krapu for discussion of ideas relating to this manuscript. I thank Scott Durham for agreeing to have 50 wetlands on his property restored and allowing me to feature his land in this manuscript. Chris Flann oversaw the restoration of the wetlands in the case study. I thank Sammy King, Jim Anderson, and the Wildlife Section of the Society of Wetland Scientists for inviting me to write this paper and Raymond Finocchiaro, Robert Gleason, David Mushet, Mark Sherfy, Loren Smith, Brian Tangen, Mark Wiltermuth, and anonymous reviewers for comments on previous drafts. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the United States Government.

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  1. U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, 8711 37th Street SE, Jamestown, ND, 58401, USA

    Michael J. Anteau

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Correspondence to Michael J. Anteau.

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Anteau, M.J. Do Interactions of Land Use and Climate Affect Productivity of Waterbirds and Prairie-Pothole Wetlands?. Wetlands 32, 1–9 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-011-0206-3

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