Bird Ecology and Conservation in Peru's High Andean Petlands Richard Edward Gibbons Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2012 Bird ecology and conservation in Peru's high Andean petlands Richard Edward Gibbons Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Recommended Citation Gibbons, Richard Edward, "Bird ecology and conservation in Peru's high Andean petlands" (2012). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2338. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2338 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. BIRD ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION IN PERU’S HIGH ANDEAN PEATLANDS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Biological Sciences by Richard Edward Gibbons B.A., Centenary College of Louisiana, 1995 M.S., Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, 2004 May 2012 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the sacrifice and support of my wife Kimberly Vetter and her family. She will forever have my gratitude and respect for sharing this journey with me. My advisor Dr. J. V. Remsen, Jr. is acknowledged for his incredible knack for identifying the strengths and weaknesses in proposals and manuscripts. His willingness to let me flail about in my search for answers surely has helped make me a better researcher. I am grateful for his patience and confidence in my abilities. My committee was instrumental in making this dissertation a better contribution and me a stronger scientist. I am grateful for their doubts and questions. Verity Mathis, Gustavo Bravo, Curt Burney, and the LSUMNS graduate student community were instrumental in completing this work. At the logistical level, preparation for fieldwork was greatly assisted by Thomas Valqui and Javier Barrio by providing advice for study sites and helping to arrange field assistants. Sheila Figueroa, Flor Hernández, Celeste Santos, Vadinia Cueva, Alessandra Quiñones, Luis Alza, Jano Nuñez, and Adolfo Quevedo forever will have my gratitude. Zachary Cheviron's company and assistance on a February 2009 trip was both enjoyable and productive. Funding was provided with grants from the National Science Foundation (USA) Grant # DEB 0543562, the LSU Museum of Natural Science Big Day Fund, the Coypu Foundation, and LSU BioGrads. Tammie Jackson provided further logistic support and travel arrangements. I received statistical advice from James P. Geaghan and Zi Jia of the Louisiana State University Experimental Statistics department. Susanna Dixon was most helpful in the final edit. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.........................................................................................…..... ii ABSTRACT........................................................................................………………........ v CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION………………………….…………………………….1 CHAPTER TWO. DO NEW OCCURRENCE RECORDS REPRESENT VAGRANCY OR THE TYPICAL RANGE? A QUANTITATIVE APPROACH FOR ASSESSING GEOGRAPHIC RANGE USING EXTRALIMITAL AND WINTER RANGE OCCURRENCE RECORDS OF BLACK-FRONTED GROUND-TYRANT (MUSCISAXICOLA FRONTALIS)….……...................5 Introduction...............................................…………..………...….............…..……..5 Methods...................................................................................................…….......7 Results.....................................................................................................…….....12 Discussion................................................................................................……....13 CHAPTER THREE. HABITAT USE AND SEASONALITY OF BIRDS IN THE PERUVIAN PUNA WITH AN EMPHASIS ON PEATLANDS (BOFEDALES) ………………...20 Introduction...............................................…………..………...….............….…....20 Methods...................................................................................................…….....23 Results.....................................................................................................…….....25 Discussion................................................................................................……....28 CHAPTER FOUR. PREDICTING PEATLAND HABITAT OCCURRENCE AND ASSESSING VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE HIGH ANDES OF PERU …………………………………………………………………………………...51 Introduction...............................................…………..………...….........................51 Methods...................................................................................................……….53 Results......................................................................................................……....59 Discussion................................................................................................……....67 REFERENCES...................................................................................……….................70 APPENDIX 1. OCCURRENCE RECORDS OF MUSCISAXICOLA FRONTALIS……...78 APPENDIX 2. LIST OF ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING VARIABLES………….………81 APPENDIX 3. SPECIES DETECTIONS DURING LINE TRANSECT SURVEYS…..…82 APPENDIX 4. DERIVED FACTORS AND LOADINGS FROM TRANSECT DATA……85 APPENDIX 5. EFFECT OF HABITAT ON PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS…..……………87 APPENDIX 6. SEASON EFFECT ON FACTORS……………...………………………….88 iii APPENDIX 7. VARIABLE INTERACTIONS BY HABITAT……………………..…………89 APPENDIX 8. FACTOR SIGNIFICANCE LEVELS……………………………….………..90 APPENDIX 9. SUM OF BIRD DETECTIONS IN BOFEDAL BY SEASON……………...91 APPENDIX 10. JOURNAL PERMISSION CONTRACT………….……………………….93 VITA.............................................................................................................…………..100 iv ABSTRACT High in the Andes, a unique peatland habitat exists precariously above the frostline and below snowline. These “bofedales”, as they are called in Peru, support an extraordinary avifauna consisting of both boreal and austral migratory species and residents. This ecosystem is predicted to be significantly reduced as a result of global climate change. We endeavored to understand the habitat associations and seasonality of the avian assemblage occurring in these permanent wetlands. Numerous detections of species outside of their documented geographic range provided an opportunity to assess geographic ranges using niche modeling. This novel approach provided insights and inferences for assessing geographic ranges. Peatland study sites were visited in both the wet and dry season and habitat and seasonality associations were determined for the majority of species occurring therein. Peatlands are an important habitat for many migratory and resident bird species and seasonality is strong for many species. With the threat of climate change predicted for the Andes, we modeled the presence of peatland habitat for a large area of southern Peru using ground-truthed study sites and assessed the effects of the temperature change for these peatlands. Our model showed peatlands represent approximately 5% of the Puna. Peatland occurrence is correlated with several environmental variables including flow accumulation and presence of glaciers in the watershed. Using the model of peatland occurrence, we predicted what percentage of peatland habitat would no longer occur within the required climatic envelope. Within our study area, more than 75% of the peatlands would no longer occur above the frost line using temperature predictions for the next 80 years. In effect, habitat for already rare and isolated bird species will be dramatically reduced by weather alone. The additional v pressures of pastoralism, peat harvesting, agriculture, and water diversion projects suggest these peatlands should be prioritized for conservation assessment and action. Finally, we identified several areas within our study area that are most likely to persist through the precipitation and temperature changes through the end of the century. vi CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION High elevation peatlands are among the most unique habitats in the tropical Andes and certainly among the least studied (Squeo et al. 2006). These montane peatlands occur in the extensive puna grassland (Brack 1986) and range in size from less than one hectare to hundreds of hectares. Bofedales, as peatlands are called locally in Peru, are used extensively by pastoralists working alpaca and sheep, often encouraging the expansion of peatlands by cutting channels through the accumulated peat to allow water into drier adjacent land (Lentz 2000). In addition to being vital for Andean pastoral communities, these wet habitat islands provide habitat for a unique community of organisms, not the least of these, birds (Fjeldså and Krabbe 1990, Olson and Dinerstein 2002, Telleria et al. 2006). The puna avifauna, although relatively species-poor by tropical standards, has a high degree of species-level endemism adding weight to the calculus of conservation (Stotz et al. 1996, Parker et al. 1996). Although many important summary accounts and compendia have been produced for birds occurring in the high Andes of Peru (Dorst 1955, Johnson 1965, Koepcke 1970, Fjeldså 1996, Schulenberg 2007), the geographic ranges and natural history details of bird species associated with these