Wading Bird Predation in a Seasonally Fluctuating Pond
Kushlan JA. 1976. Wading Bird Predation in a Seasonally Fluctuating Pond. The Auk. 93(3):464-476
Water collects in ponds within the Everglades ecosystem during the dry season, and aquatic animals become concentrated in these ponds. This paper describes wading bird use of one such pond within the Big Cypress Swamp, Florida; the study area is now within Big Cypress National Preserve. The author discusses advantages to the birds of feeding in large aggregates, as well as effects on the ecology of the pools the birds use. Contrasting a year when feeding aggregations used the Big Cypress study pool with a year when they did not, the author finds that predation by the wading birds reduces the number of fish to levels which are sustainable over the dry season, except for occasional seasons in which pools dry completely. When birds are not present to reduce fish numbers to about 25 percent, reduced oxygen in the water leads to massive die-offs, leaving few fish and only a small number of species available for the next season's production. With graphs of climate and water-level data, and of bird numbers and biomass.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Kushlan, James
- Units
- BICY
- Keywords
- Animal Studies, Feeding, Fish, Habitat Utilization, Impacts, Lakes & Ponds, Predation, Wading Birds