Implications of Avian Habitats: Relationships in Wetland Restoration

Abstract

Wetlands in suburban areas have high net primary productivity, support urban biodiversity, and are candidate sites for ecological restoration and research. In many places around the world, especially China, these valuable ecosystems are in desperate need of restoration if they are to continue delivering the ecosystem services of food and fiber production, water purification, and habitat to support biodiversity. Traditional ecosystem restoration methodology relies on modeling an intact reference ecosystem that is near the restoration site. In many urban regions, such an ideal reference ecosystem no longer exists. This study developed and applied a method for conducting ecological restoration in such cases, using three altered sites in Tianjin, China, as a surrogate reference ecosystem. Qilihai Ancient Lagoon Wetland was used as a validation site. The vegetation structure, floristics, habitats, human disturbance, avian populations, distributions, and habitat characteristics of the reference sites were inventoried. Bird species were inventoried, and birds were grouped by foraging guild. Multispecies habitat models, developed with Lasso regressions, were used to predict avian diversity on the validation site. Species richness and guild richness were found to be sensitive to Shannon-Wiener vegetation diversity, horizontal patchiness, micro-habitat patch area, and human disturbance. The results were used to develop suitable micro-habitat types and conditions and for each guild. Although results would vary in different regions or even sites, this methodology could be used to make recommendations for habitat restoration in different locations.