Congruence between breeding and wintering biodiversity hotspots: A case study in farmlands of Western Poland

Abstract

Farmland landscapes are recognized as important ecosystems, not only for their rich biodiversity but equally so for the human beings who live and work in these places. However, biodiversity varies among sites (spatial change) and among seasons (temporal change). In this work, we tested the hypothesis that bird diversity hotspots distribution for breeding is congruent with bird diversity hotspots for wintering season, focusing also the representation of protected areas for the conservation of local hotspots. We proposed a framework based on the use of species richness, functional diversity, and evolutionary distinctiveness to characterize avian communities. Although our findings show that the spatial distribution of local bird hotspots differed slightly between seasons, the protected areas’ representation was similar in both seasons. Protected areas covered 65% of the most important zones for breeding and 71% for the wintering season in the farmland studied. Functional diversity showed similar patterns as did bird species richness, but this measure can be most effective for highlighting differences on bird community composition. Evolutionary distinctiveness was less congruent with species richness and functional diversity, among seasons. Our findings suggest that inter-seasonal spatial congruence of local hotspots can be considered as suitable areas upon which to concentrate greater conservation efforts. However, even considering the relative congruence of avian diversity metrics at a local spatial scale, simultaneous analysis of protected areas while inter-seasonally considering hotspots, can provide a more complete representation of ecosystems for assessing the conservation status and designating priority areas.

The diversity-area relationship for waterbird communities in small artificial reservoirs over winter

“…Immigration, one of the processes in the island biogeography equation, is well documented in Crimean avifauna (Prokopenko et al 2012, Tsvelykh & Kucherenko 2020), including aquatic species (Vergeles et al 2012, Kucherenko et al 2015, 2017b, 2018); however, such studies tend to concentrate on nesting species. Nevertheless, all phenological periods are important for monitoring bird activity, and data from all seasons are required to fully assess the significance of a locality for bird maintenance during winter (Kwieciński et al 2016, Morelli et al 2018). Data on the diversity of waterbirds in isolated reservoirs, especially in winter, are relatively rare in the literature, and studies of waterbirds tend to be more common from Ramsar wetlands and other hotspots than small ponds.…”