Diversity and abundance of birds in rice growing agro-ecological systems: a case study of doho rice scheme.

Abstract

Birds are essential components of any ecosystem in terms of continuing ecological cycles (Haider et al., 2022), particularly in the food chains and webs. The diversity and abundance of avifauna biodiversity in the Doho rice scheme agro-ecological ecosystem was investigated to understand the effect of different land use types on bird communities. Rice fields, intact papyrus swamp, rice drying yard and stores and non-rice crop fields were considered for the study. A systematic Belt transect sampling method was used to obtain species densities of the birds. A total of 54 bird species, belonging to 26 families, were observed in the entire agro-ecological ecosystem. The red billed quelea was the most abundant bird in the agro-ecological ecosystem. The intact papyrus wetland was the most diverse land use type. The Doho ecosystem supported mostly small waterbirds (scolopacidae) and rice pest birds (passeridae, fringilidae, poloceidae). A high number of families were habitat specialists (65.4% of the families). The most abundant land-use type was rice fields, followed by the dry agriculture land fields, papyrus swamp and finally the drying yards. Shannon Wiener diversity index showed that the most diverse land-use type was the papyrus swamp (H’= 2.172357418). There was no statistically significant difference in bird species abundance between the four land-use type (df= 3, f= 0.326 p> 0.05). Therefore, Land-use type affected the diversity of birds in the area, but did not have a significant effect on abundance of birds. Natural habitats are more important than those altered by human activities in terms of avifauna conservation.