Abstract Assessment and monitoring of biodiversity is critical for conservation planning. Considering the cost and time associated to monitoring, selecting proper bio-indicators is important, particularly in countries where financial resources are limited. The objectives of this study were to investigate community congruence of macroinvertebrates and wetland birds in natural wetlands of southwest Ethiopia, exposed to different levels of human disturbance and to identify important environmental variables related to these bio-indicators. Data on macroinvertebrates, birds, physico-chemical water quality, human disturbance and vegetation cover were collected from 54 sampling sites distributed over 12 wetlands during dry and wet season of 2015. Procrustes analysis was used to quantify community congruence between the two assemblages across different disturbance levels. The congruence of macroinvertebrates and wetland dependent birds was higher for low disturbed wetlands (R2 = 0.60) than for moderately disturbed wetlands (R2 = 0.31). Moderately disturbed wetlands showed no significant congruence between macroinvertebrates and wetland birds and between wetland dependent and wetland associated birds. A significant and positive relation between richness of macroinvertebrates and wetland dependent birds was observed when the full data set was used, whereas no significant relation was observed when the data was split according to the different levels of human disturbance. Vegetation cover, dissolved oxygen, water depth, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and conductivity were significantly correlated with both macroinvertebrate and wetland bird occurrence. Based on our study we suggest to monitor both bio-indicators as they provide important complementary information on the status of the wetlands.

中文翻译：

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埃塞俄比亚西南部天然湿地大型无脊椎动物与依赖湿地鸟类的群落一致性

摘要 生物多样性的评估和监测对于保护规划至关重要。考虑到与监测相关的成本和时间，选择合适的生物指标很重要，特别是在财政资源有限的国家。本研究的目的是调查埃塞俄比亚西南部自然湿地中大型无脊椎动物和湿地鸟类在不同程度的人类干扰下的群落一致性，并确定与这些生物指标相关的重要环境变量。大型无脊椎动物、鸟类、理化水质、人为干扰和植被覆盖的数据是在 2015 年旱季和雨季从分布在 12 个湿地的 54 个采样点收集的。Procrustes 分析用于量化不同干扰水平的两个组合之间的社区一致性。大型无脊椎动物和依赖湿地的鸟类在低干扰湿地 (R2 = 0.60) 中的一致性高于中度干扰湿地 (R2 = 0.31)。中度扰动的湿地表明大型无脊椎动物和湿地鸟类之间以及依赖湿地的鸟类和与湿地相关的鸟类之间没有显着的一致性。当使用完整数据集时，观察到大型无脊椎动物的丰富度与依赖湿地的鸟类之间存在显着的正相关关系，而当根据人类干扰的不同程度拆分数据时，未观察到显着的相关性。植被覆盖度、溶解氧、水深、总氮、总磷和电导率与大型无脊椎动物和湿地鸟类的发生显着相关。根据我们的研究，我们建议监测这两种生物指标，因为它们提供有关湿地状况的重要补充信息。