The role of different natural and human-related habitats for the conservation of birds in a high Andean Lake

Abstract

Sustainable development goals imply proper landscape management, a challenging task in human-dominated environments, where the identification of key habitats is often necessary to achieve the conservation of multispecies communities or threatened taxa. We studied the avian composition of 9 habitats in Tota Lake, a highly diverse Andean wetland affected by human activities. We evaluated the richness, abundance, dominance, and bird diversity, and used a species-habitat network approach to assess some emerging properties of the landscape and to identify key habitats for conservation. We observed 116 bird species, with a low diversity index (Shannon = 2.2) due to the dominance of gregarious species. The landscape showed a substantial sensitivity to disturbances due to habitat loss. Natural habitats were more important than human-related habitats, except for the wooded pastures used for low-scale grazing, which are among the most important coverages. This habitat represented a good example of sustainable land use. In contrast, the croplands and touristic beach were notoriously unsustainable in terms of wildlife conservation. Among the natural habitats, the most important was the marshes that presented the higher richness, abundance, importance for the landscape network, and was the most used by birds of conservation concern. Natural forest habitats, despite being reduced and fragmented, were more important to birds than the extensive forest of introduced exotic vegetation, probably due to the evolutionary history of the birds with the native vegetation.