An assessment of bird communities across Ujjani and its five satellite wetlands in Solapur District of Maharashtra, India

Ujjani wetland is a potential Ramsar site in Maharashtra, India with several satellite wetlands associated with it. The present study contributes to single large or several small habitat conservation theories by assessing wetland bird communities. Aquatic bird communities were assessed using area search and point count methods at Kumbhargaon (Ujjani), Bhadalwadi, Madanwadi, Palasdev, Pimple and Ravangaon wetlands between October 2011 and September2012. These are representative satellite wetlands around Ujjani. One-hundred-and-ten species of wetland birds across 12 orders and 29 families were recorded. Out of these, 66 were resident and 44 were found to be migrants. These birds represent 23% mudflat feeder, 16% upland feeder, 14% marsh feeder, 12% bird of prey, 11% surface feeder and fish eaters, while divers and wet meadow feeders were represented with 8.5% and 5% of the species, respectively. Among the birds recorded, Woolly-necked Stork Ciconia episcopus, Common Pochard Aythya farina, and Greater Spotted Eagle Clanga clanga belong to the Vulnerable category; while Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata, Oriental Darter Anhinga melanogaster, Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa, Black-headed Ibis Threskiornis melanocephalus, Lesser Flamingo Phoeniconaias minor, Painted Stork Mycteria leucocephala, River Tern Sterna aurantia, and Great Thick-knee Esacus recurvirostris represent Near Threatened category on the IUCN Red List. The presence of these bird species underlines the importance and conservation priorities of a major as well as smaller satellite wetlands. Anthropogenic activities such as cattle grazing, fishing, sand and soil mining, land encroachment, urban development and tourism were observed as some of the threats to this wetland ecosystem as well as bird communities.


INTRODUCTION
Wetlands are distinct zones intermediate between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem where the water table is usually at or near the surface of the land and is covered by shallow water (Semeniuk & Semeniuk 1995). Wetlands are the most productive ecosystems in the world (Mitsch et al. 2009). Natural and man-made reservoirs form small heterogenous water patches in their vicinity. Such small wetlands associated with large streams are called satellite wetlands (Bedford 1996;Novitski et al. 1996;Patten et al. 2008).
Wetlands maintain the health of the environment and support a rich biodiversity. They complete habitat requirements of various water birds. Birds are excellent indicators of wetland health (Kumar & Gupta 2013). Habitat protection is important to conserve bird communities associated with it.
Large wetlands normally receive all the importance while smaller and isolated wetlands receive least attention and are often neglected from conservation priorities. Many studies have focused on major and larger wetlands while very few scientific investigations have been undertaken on comparatively small, isolated and not so well-known wetlands. In the absence of such studies, smaller and isolated wetlands are neglected from appearing in conservation priorities even if they are located in the vicinity of a major wetland.
On a theoretical conservation perspective, single large or several small (SLOSS) habitats debate is well known; many ecologists argue for one large habitat while an equal number of scientists advocate for many small habitats (Ma et al. 2010). It was argued that species richness increases with habitat area and hence larger block of habitat would support more species than any of the smaller blocks. Further, Simberloff & Abele (1976) contested that if the smaller protected area had unshared species, then it is possible that two smaller reserves could have more species than a single large reserve.
Before we take any stand on such perspectives, it is primarily required to initiate studies that compares a large wetland and many smaller ones. Such studies can help in deciding conservation priorities in fragmented habitats. In this context, the present study explores the status of bird communities harboured at one large wetland and several small satellite wetlands associated with it. Ujjani wetland and its satellite wetlands were assessed for this work.
The Ujjani Dam is an earthen-cum-masonry gravity dam located on river Bhima. The Bhima River is a tributary of river Krishna that originates in the ranges of the Western Ghats. This dam is amongst the largest dams in Maharashtra, situated near Ujjani Village of Solapur District. The dam was primarily built for irrigating water -scarce fields. It is located at 18.299 0 N & 74.763 0 E, 465m. This region is a plain expanse with negligible slope and the reservoir is spread across 348 km 2 (Mahabal et al. 2011). It has more of shallow areas at the fringe parts of the reservoir, that provide a distinctive habitat for the avifauna. The Ujjani wetland is a potential Ramsar site in Maharashtra (Samant 2002;Islam & Rahmani 2008).

Study area
The Ujjani wetland has a huge expanse and to overcome practical difficulty in sampling, Kumbhargaon (18.266  865 0 E, 507m) associated with Ujjani wetland was selected for the present study. In order to know the exact location of these wetlands, satellite imagery was superimposed on the toposheet. A map of these sites was prepared to indicate relative locations of these wetlands with respect to Ujjani with the help of QGIS 2.18 (Image 1).

Bird survey
The study was conducted between October 2011 and September 2012. Counts were conducted near the wetland where all or most of the surface area and edge were visible (Bibby et al. 2000). The survey duration includes the time required to thoroughly scan a wetland. Sampling was conducted using area search and point count method. Point counts were taken for areas where visibility is obstructed like marshy area and upland vegetation. No two-point counts were taken within a distance of 200m. Care was taken to ensure that birds were recorded only once (Bibby et al. 2000, Weller 1999). Area search methods were used for areas with clear visibility like open water. The accessible edges of wetlands were walked around to detect any unseen birds. The birds were observed during the peak hours of their activity from sunrise to 10.00h and 16.00-18.00 Identification of birds was done using field guides (Ali & Ripley 1995;Grimmett et al. 2013), and only those species with confirmed identity were recorded and reported.

Data classification and analysis
Recording and listing of these birds were done using standard common and scientific names (Praveen et al. 2016). Residential status of the birds as resident and migrants had been assigned with reference to the study area on the basis of presence or absence method. The status of the recorded bird species was established on the basis of frequency of sightings (Kumar & Gupta 2009) as Abundant (A) recorded 9-10 times out of 10 visits, Common (C) recorded 7-8 times out of 10 visits, Frequent (F) recorded 5-6 times out of 10 visits, Occasional (O) recorded 3-5 times out of 10 visits, Rare(R) recorded 0-2 times out of 10 visits (Therivel & Morris 1995). Birds were delineated in eight feeding categories as bird of prey, fish eaters, divers, mudflat feeder, marsh feeder, wet meadow, surface feeder ducks, and upland feeders (Gole 1993).
To compare wetlands, a cluster analysis was performed on the presence of bird communities. Cluster analysis was performed using Jaccard's similarity measure and a paired group method by PAST 3 software (Field & McFarlane 1968;Day & Edelsbrunner 1984;Washington 1984;Hartzell et al. 2007). The conservation status of the observed species was listed using the IUCN Red List, 2016 ver3.1 (IUCN 2016).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
One-hundred-and-ten species of wetland bird genera belonging to 12 orders and 29 families were recorded from Kumbhargaon (Ujjani) and its satellite wetlands between October 2011-September 2012.
The checklist of birds observed, identified and recorded in the region along with their family and resident status is provided in Table 1. It was observed that Anatidae (16 species) followed by Scolopacidae (14 species) were the most represented families of the study area ( Figure 1); whereas, Anhingidae, Dicruridae, Falconidae, Gruidae, Meropidae, Pandionidae, Podicipedidae, Recurvirostridae, and Rostratulidae were represented by just a single genus and least represented.
Among the recorded species 66 species were resident and 44 migratory. Relative abundance studies revealed that six species were abundant, 21 species were common, 46 species were frequent, 25 occasional and 12 were rare. Woolly-necked Stork Ciconia episcopus, Image 1. Ujjani and its satellite Wetlands (Source: Google Image 2011). Taxa  Feeding class-wise distribution of observed species indicated that mudflat feeders were most common with 23% species, followed by upland feeders with 16%, marsh feeders with 14%, bird of prey with 12 %, surface feeders and fish eaters each with 11%, while divers and wet meadow feeders were represented with 8.5% and 5% of the species, respectively (Figure 2     were found to be least abundant. When Shannon-Weiner diversity and evenness across satellite wetlands were calculated, it was found to be 3.5, 0.37 at Kumbhargoan (Ujjani) followed by 3.5, 0.38 at Palasdev; 3.1, 0.42 at Madanwadi, 2.6, 0.45 at Pimple, 2.5, 0.22 at Bhadalwadi, and 2.2, 0.33 Ravangaon wetland at p<0.05.

Journal of Threatened
Jaccard's similarity index was calculated from the record of occurrence of the bird species across these wetlands. It was observed that, Kumbhargaon (Ujjani) and Palasdev were most similar wetlands with index value of 0.88, while Kumbhargaon (Ujjani) and Ravangaon were most dissimilar in their species composition with index value of 0.36. Kumbhargaon (Ujjani) and Bhadalwadi was more similar with index value of 0.59 followed by Kumbhargaon (Ujjani) and Madanwadi with reported value of 0.49. Kumbhargaon (Ujjani) and Pimple to were among least similar wetlands with value of 0.4. It reveals that, out of five associated wetlands of Ujjani reservoir; Palasdev, Bhadalwadi and Madanwadi wetlands show high resemblance and similarity for the inhabitation of wetland bird communities. Bird communities harboured by Ujjani and Ravangaon wetland were fairly distinct. Detailed cluster analysis paired (UPGMA) of Jaccard's similarity Index of each wetland was shown in Figure 3.
Present study provides checklist of wetland bird communities at Ujjani as well as its five satellite wetlands. Of the 110 bird species recorded at Kumbhargoan (Ujjani) wetland, 94 were recorded at Palasdev, while 59, 54, 31, and 29 species were reported at Bhadalwadi, Madanwadi, Pimple, and Ravangaon wetlands, respectively. Vital base line information on the presence and abundance of bird communities based on sightings were collected. Ujjani and other wetlands have shallow water expanse resulting in rich abundance and diversity of bird communities. The wetland bird communities are in general heterogeneous in their feeding habitat (Kumar & Gupta 2013). The diversity of the wetland birds observed at other satellite wetlands may indicate a presence of a wide spectrum of feeding niches. In the present study agriculture fields surrounding the Kumbhargaon (Ujjani) wetland and satellite wetlands with scattered plants, viz., Acacia species, Zizyphus species, and Tamarindus species, probably provide diverse roosting and foraging habitation grounds to the bird communities.
A comparison of bird communities of main wetlands with its satellite wetlands revealed that, some of the satellite wetlands support an almost equal number of bird species to that of the main wetland. Also, all these satellite wetlands together share, more than 95% of the total bird species composition of Ujjani wetland. Presence of the threatened bird species highlights the significance of the wetland as an important