Abstract

Conservation initiatives to support declining water-related biodiversity through wetland creation have increased during the last decades. Multiple studies have evaluated the suitability of created wetlands for birds and amphibians, but only a few have considered the species associations that might also affect the outcome. Using joint species distribution models, we explored species associations of birds, amphibians and fish in 52 created biodiversity wetlands in Sweden. As most of these wetlands were primarily created for increasing bird diversity, we asked whether the occurrence of fish and amphibians relates to bird species richness, pair abundance and chick abundance (as a measure of reproductive success) and whether conservation conflicts or synergies between birds, amphibians and fish can be observed. In general, we found positive bird-amphibian association patterns and negative bird-fish association patterns, although the uncertainties were high for these estimates. In line with previous research, the generally negative bird-fish co-variance indicates potential conservation conflicts between wetland creation for birds and fish, where fish might be introduced for recreational fishing or other ecosystem services. Therefore, our results suggest that it can be hard to benefit bird and fish communities with the same wetland, and separate wetland creation with different goals may be needed. The generally positive birdamphibian species-species associations and the lack of previous studies revealing conflicts indicate synergies between wetland creation for birds and amphibians. However, research needs to further consolidate such synergies, including amphibian reproductive output from bird-rich wetlands.

Keywords

Species interactions; Constructed pond; Freshwater vertebrates; HMSC; Biodiversity assessment; eDNA

Published in

Biological Conservation
2023, Volume: 282, article number: 110031
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU Authors

• Kacergyté, Ineta

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Knape, Jonas

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Arlt, Debora

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • SLU Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Pärt, Tomas

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss


UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110031

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/122277