Abstract
ContextWith the expansion in urbanization, understanding how biodiversity responds to the altered landscape becomes a major concern. Most studies focus on habitat effects on biodiversity, yet much less attention has been paid to surrounding landscape matrices and their joint effects.ObjectiveWe investigated how habitat and landscape matrices affect waterbird diversity across scales in the Yangtze River Floodplain, a typical area with high biodiversity and severe human-wildlife conflict.MethodsThe compositional and structural features of the landscape were calculated at fine and coarse scales. The ordinary least squares regression model was adopted, following a test showing no significant spatial autocorrelation in the spatial lag and spatial error models, to estimate the relationship between landscape metrics and waterbird diversity.ResultsWell-connected grassland and shrub surrounded by isolated and regular-shaped developed area maintained higher waterbird diversity at fine scales. Regular-shaped developed area and cropland, irregular-shaped forest, and aggregated distribution of wetland and shrub positively affected waterbird diversity at coarse scales.ConclusionsHabitat and landscape matrices jointly affected waterbird diversity. Regular-shaped developed area facilitated higher waterbird diversity and showed the most pronounced effect at coarse scales. The conservation efforts should not only focus on habitat quality and capacity, but also habitat connectivity and complexity when formulating development plans. We suggest planners minimize the expansion of the developed area into critical habitats and leave buffers to maintain habitat connectivity and shape complexity to reduce the disturbance to birds. Our findings provide important insights and practical measures to protect biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes.
Highlights
Anthropogenic landscape modification is the major cause of biodiversity loss (Fischer and Lindenmayer 2007; Guadagnin and Maltchik 2007), and is one of the most pressing challenges for ecologists and conservation biologists
We suggest planners minimize the expansion of the developed area into critical habitats and leave buffers to maintain habitat connectivity and shape complexity to reduce the disturbance to birds
The highest waterbird diversity was found in the Poyang Lake Nature Reserve in Jiangxi Province, followed by Chen Lake and Liangzi Lake in Hubei province, while relatively lower ShannonWiener values occurred in Ge Lake in Jiangsu province, the Aquafarm of Jieshou Town in Anhui province and West Yangcheng Lake in Jiangsu province (Table S1)
Summary
Anthropogenic landscape modification is the major cause of biodiversity loss (Fischer and Lindenmayer 2007; Guadagnin and Maltchik 2007), and is one of the most pressing challenges for ecologists and conservation biologists. The influence on urban development is not ubiquitous for biodiversity and is instead dependent on landscape composition and configuration at local and regional scales (Andrade et al 2018). Waterbirds (e.g. swans, geese, ducks, and herons), that rely on wetland habitats are sensitive to the environmental change and are often regarded as important indicators of ecosystem health (Ogden et al 2014). Populations of such important bird groups are declining globally, which calls for new strategies for conservation of both waterbirds and wetlands (Amano et al 2018)
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