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A Waterbird Inventory of the Darkhad Depression, Kbovsgol, Mongolia

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SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry Digital Commons @ ESF Honors Theses 12-2018 A Waterbird Inventory of the Darkhad Depression, Kbovsgol, Mongolia Mikayla Call Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.esf.edu/honors Part of the Ornithology Commons Recommended Citation Call, Mikayla, "A Waterbird Inventory of the Darkhad Depression, Kbovsgol, Mongolia" (2018). Honors Theses. 138. https://digitalcommons.esf.edu/honors/138 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ ESF. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ ESF. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Call, Waterbird Inventory Darkhad Depression | 1 ABSTRACT The Darkhad Depression, Khövsgöl aimag, Mongolia has an abundance of rivers, lakes, and pothole wetlands, providing one of the most extensive concentrations of waterbird habitat in Mongolia. Waterbirds use the wetlands of the Darkhad Depression for breeding, molting, and as stopover sites during migration. As far as we are aware, our survey of waterbirds in this region is the first to provide broad wetland coverage of the Darkhad Depression. We conducted a survey of waterbirds in the Darkhad Depression in Tsagaannuur and Renchinlhumbe soums and compared densities of waterbirds between two lakes with subsistence fishing and those without. We surveyed 60 lakes (5867.26 ha) and a 5.4 ha portion of a river for waterbirds. We observed 39 species and calculated their frequency of occurrence among lakes and densities among occupied lakes (birds/ha). Common goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula) and tufted ducks (Aythya fuligula) had the greatest estimated densities for the Darkhad Depression (0.3 birds/ha), whereas common greenshank (Tringa nebularia), Eurasian curlew (Numenius arquata), smew (Mergellus albellus), and black stork (Ciconia nigra) had the least (< 0.0001 birds/ha). Tufted ducks had the highest mean density on used lakes (6.66 ± 5.69 birds/ha), and common goldeneye used the highest percentage of wetlands (57.38% of surveyed wetlands). We detected that piscivorous waterbird densities on two lakes that were historically overfished were 79% less than those on lakes of similar size, suggesting that overfishing could be a threat to these birds in the Darkhad Depression. We recommend that future studies conduct more extensive surveys of waterbirds over a longer surveying period and earlier in the breeding season, so that more species can be counted with their young and a more complete inventory of waterbirds can be created. KEYWORDS Waterbirds, waterfowl, densities, breeding success, Mongolia, Darkhad Depression Call, Waterbird Inventory Darkhad Depression | 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract and Keywords .................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................3 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................4 Methods ...........................................................................................................................................6 Study Area .......................................................................................................................................6 Survey Methods .............................................................................................................................10 Results ...........................................................................................................................................11 Inventories Species and Estimated Densities .................................................................................11 Juvenile/Adult Ratios of Waterbirds ..............................................................................................12 Densities of Waterbirds on Historically Fished Lakes ..................................................................13 Discussion......................................................................................................................................13 Species Inventoried in the Darkhad Depression ............................................................................13 Juvenile/Adult Ratios of Waterbirds in the Darkhad Depression ..................................................14 Molt Migration ...............................................................................................................................16 Timing of Surveys..........................................................................................................................17 Possible Effects of Overfishing on Lakes and Bird Densities .......................................................20 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................21 References .....................................................................................................................................22 Appendix .....................................................................................................................................254 Call, Waterbird Inventory Darkhad Depression | 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The success of this research project would not have been possible without the help of several people and organizations. First, I would like to thank Round River Conservation Studies for organizing its research program in partnership with the Ulaan Taiga Protected Areas Administration in Mongolia. This program provided the opportunity to collect waterbird data in the Darkhad Depression. Thank you to the three Round River Conservation Studies instructors (Chris Smith, Rebecca Watters, and Badmaa Dovchin) for leading the program, as well as the program directors Alexander Diemer and Doug Milek for organizing the trip. Thank you also to every Round River Conservation Studies Mongolia 2018 Program student (Rebekah R. Holt., Caleb E. Aswad., Lauren N. Dunn, April M. Reisenfeld., Grace Stein, J. Finnegan Townsley, and Alyssa M. Cote) for their efforts during the four intensive days of surveying waterbirds. Thank you to Tumurusukh Jal, director of the Ulaan Taiga Protected Areas Administration, and Battogtukh Tumur and Bayarhuu Byambaa, Mongolian Rangers for the Ulaan Taiga Strictly Protected Area for their support and expertise throughout the development of the project and surveys. Finally, thank you to Chinbold and Mendee for driving us during each day of surveying, and for helping us locate the best surveying points along each lake. Thank you also to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) Career Services Fellowship board for granting me a fellowship that partially funded my opportunity to conduct this research. I would also like to thank Dr. William Shields for providing the opportunity for me to complete this as an honors thesis through the SUNY ESF Honors Program, and Dr. Michael Schummer for acting as my honors thesis advisor. Thank you to Daniel Sinopoli, Emma Buckardt, Tia Ogus, and the Team Duck lab group for providing feedback and support during the thesis writing process. Call, Waterbird Inventory Darkhad Depression | 4 INTRODUCTION Wildlife counts provide a means to inventory species, while also providing a method to estimate densities that can be used to monitor and manage populations. Only one published avifaunal survey of a wetland in the Darkhad Depression in Khövsgöl, Mongolia currently exists in online databases (Ganbold et al. 2018). An understanding of the distribution and abundances of waterbird species in this region is primarily limited to local knowledge. The Ramsar Convention (1971) defines waterbirds as species that are dependent on wetlands, and includes the avian orders Anseriformes, Podicipediformes, Gruiformes, Ciconiiformes, Gaviiformes, Pelecaniformes, Suliformes, and Charadriiformes. Waterbirds in Central Asia are known for their long-distance migrations, travelling between their breeding grounds in the southern Siberian ecosystem (i.e., southern Russia and northern Mongolia) and their wintering grounds in southern regions such as China, India, and northern Africa (Batbayar 2013, del Hoyo et al. 2018). For many of these species, extensive intact wetland habitat is required for breeding and wintering ground, as well as at stopover sites along their migration routes (Ma et al. 2009, Batbayar 2013). Loss of breeding habitat may pose threats to waterbirds as wetland habitat availability declines due to threats such as habitat degradation, pollution, flow regulation, and climate change (Gardner et al. 2015). The threat of climate change to wetland habitat is especially critical in Mongolia, which has experienced desertification and a rapid increase in temperature in the past decade (Dagvadorj et al. 2014). The nesting ecology of waterbird species also may be threatened; for example, bar-headed geese (Anser indicus) nesting sites in west-central Mongolia are limited by the amount of annual precipitation (Batbayar 2013). An additional threat to Mongolian Call, Waterbird Inventory Darkhad Depression | 5 wetlands is disturbance from herds of livestock (Batbayar 2013, Gandbold et al. 2018), which play an important role in Mongolian nomadic life. The Darkhad Depression has around
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