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Wetland natural grasslands are important habi-
tats for avian populations throughout the world.
Unfortunately the increase of human population
and rise in demand for settlements and agricul-
tural land have degraded these habitats in many
tropical wetlands. To effectively restore these
natural grasslands and conserve avifaunal bio-
diversity, understanding of the relationships be-
tween habitat conditions and bird community
structure are central. We used a combination of
information from nearby villagers and field sur-
veys to establish two important grassland habi-
tats with low and high disturbance histories, and
related the habitats to bird community structure.
We surveyed a total of 119 sites in the two habi-
tats to examine variation in the abundance, rich-
ness, diversity and composition of birds at Kilo-
mbero Wetland Tanzania. In total, 3049 indivi-
duals, 126 species, 88 genera and 45 families
were recorded from Kilombero grasslands. Our
results show that grasslands with low human
disturbance had more number of bird species,
genera, families and diversity (both Shannon-
Wiener and Simpson) than the most disturbed
grasslands at p < 0.05. However, the abundance
and Shannon evenness of birds were not dif-
ferent (p > 0.05) between low and highly dis-
turbed grassland habitats suggesting that other
factors including variety of foraging sites are
important. This study confirms that the wetland
grasslands of Kilombero are important for con-
servation of birds including rare and endemic
species. It is recommended that anthropogenic
disturbances should be minimized including control of fire, regulation of agricultural activities and population of cattle within the wetland sys-
tem to restore and conserve biodiversity. |
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