Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2023
Höfundar / Authors: Aldís E. Pálsdóttir (1,2), Jennifer A. Gill (3), Böðvar Þórisson (1,2), José Alves (1,4), Sigrún Sigurðardóttir (1,2), Jónína H. Ólafsdóttir (1,2) and Tómas G. Gunnarsson (1,2)
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Rannsóknasetur Háskóla Íslands á Suðurlandi (1), Háskóli Íslands (2), University of East Anglia (3), DBIO & CESAM, University of Aveiro (4)
Kynnir / Presenter: Aldís Erna Pálsdóttir
Biodiversity is declining globally, largely due to increased human influence on natural systems. Among declining taxa are breeding waders, which are considered especially vulnerable to the expansion of anthropogenic influence, as these species are rarely able to make use of human altered habitats such as urban areas or plantation forests. Along with occupying potential breeding habitats, reduced densities of breeding waders around these altered habitats are common, and may reflect active avoidance of structures or changes in demographic rates in these areas. Iceland is considered one of the most important areas for breeding waders in Europe and it is estimated that ~1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland in the summer. Nest success, which is considered a key factor driving demography and population changes in waders, shows tremendous spatial and temporal variation globally. Here we aim to quantify how much predation there is on nests of ground-nesting wader species in Iceland, and link this with distance from land-use changes that are known to affect the density of these species in Iceland. Additionally, motion triggered cameras were placed on nests to identify nest predators and thereby estimate the importance of individual predator species on nest success.