Multiple wetland restoration and enhancement techniques are used in Louisiana to combat land loss and provide habitat for waterbirds. We investigated the avian response to three wetland restoration techniques in the Lower Mississippi Birds Foot Delta to determine if the different habitat types resulted in differences in the value of edge habitat. Species richness, guild richness, total bird density, bird density by foraging guild, and bird abundance relative to distance from the marsh edge was compared among (i) crevasse splays, a type of sediment diversion which allow the river to build new wetlands, (ii), beneficial use of dredged material marshes, where heavy equipment to create new wetlands from sediments dredged from navigation channels, (iii) marsh terraces, where lighter equipment is used to create strips of edge habitat from sediments dredged from the restoration site, (iv) old edge marshes, representing pre-restoration conditions at degrading marshes, and (v) open water sites. Seasonal bird counts and vegetation surveys were conducted from March 2013 to October 2014 at plots within the Pass a Loutre State Wildlife Management Area and Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, USA.
We found bird abundance and diversity differs among the five habitat types during some times of the year, with habitat type and season often having a significant affect on the composition of the avian community. There was a significant relationship between habitat types and environmental factors (p=0.002), and a significant relationship between foraging guilds and environmental factors (p=0.002). Habitat type functions as a useful predictor of guild richness, but alone is not a perfect substitute for environmental variables when identifying the source of all variation in avian community composition. All habitat types studied provided habitat for birds, but were not utilized by all species or foraging guilds equally. We found that old edge marshes supported similar species richness as restored marshes during summer and winter (p<0.05) and open water supported the highest bird density in winter and spring (p<0.05). Any marsh habitat type, however, can be expected to support greater guild and species richness than open water areas during all seasons, but not greater bird density.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-07132015-015315 |
| Date | 03 August 2015 |
| Creators | Sullivan, Lauren Rae |
| Contributors | Nyman, John Andrew, La Peyre, Megan, King, Sammy |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-07132015-015315/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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