Study On The Species Diversity Of Waterbirds At Wetland Of Western Hulun Buir And The Phylogeny Of Falconiformes

Hulun Buir Grassland, at the farthest eastern part of Eurasian Steppe, is the most biodiverse one in China. The wetland on Hulun Buir Grassland has complex and diverse ecotypes, and all types of wetlands can be found here with the exception of marine and constructed ones and have a vast area, which accordingly has become a good breeding and resting ground for waterfowl. In this study, the number of migratory birds in spring and autumn and breeding birds in summer were investigated consecutively from 2009 to 2014 in the west major wetland of Hulun Buir, the difference of the bird diversity in the space and time scales and the relationship between the climatic factors and the area of wetland were studied. The importance of each wetland to the rare birds was evaluated, then the phylogeny of Falconiformes was researched. The results were as follows:1. The birds in the west wetland of Hulun Buir take on high diversity, and 105 species of birds of 6 families of 16 orders were recorded, including 6 species under the firstgrade state protection and 14 species under the secondgrade state protection. In term of geographical composition, dominant local birds are from the palaearctic realm, up to 82 species, accounting for 78.1% of the total, the 18 widespread species account for 17.1%, and only 5 species are from the oriental realm, accounting for 4.8%. The types of the 105 species of birds are as follows:39 species of summer birds,34 species of summer and passing migrant birds,31 species of passing migrant birds.2. The wetland birds in this region are mainly of Charadriiformes and Anseriformes, which differ in the rank of dominance degree:spring and autumn Anseriformes birds are dominant in the number, while summer Charadriiformes birds have a large number. The result of the homogeneity test indicated that there was no significantly difference among the different years, species diversity at different seasons and the homogeneity.3. The correlation analysis between the 27 dominant and common species and the mean annual temperature, annual precipitation, mean annual humidity suggested that the total annual amount of Ciconiformes、Podicipediformes、Anas strepera、Limosa limosa、Podiceps cristatus was significantly correlated to the climatic factors, while the total annual amount of Anas acuta、 Aythya ferina、Larus ridibundus was significantly or highly significantly positive correlated to the area of water, the total annual amount of shorebirds was significantly negative correlated to the area of water.4. The birds in the 5 major west wetlands of Hulun Buir in different seasons are of difference in species, number, diversity index and evenness index, which show functional differences between wetlands as bird habitats.The birds in Hui River Wetland, Argun River Wetland, ErkaWetland and Morigele River Wetland in spring and summer are far more than those in autumn, so they are important stopover sites for migratory birds; the birds in Dalai Lake Wetland in summer are far more than those in spring and autumn, so it is an important breeding ground for migratory birds. Dalai Lake wetland ranks first in terms of species diversity index in spring, summer and autumn, indicating the uniform and stable bird community structure. The comparative analysis of the diversity of waterfowl at summer in Domod, Mongolia showed that the amount of birds in Mongolia was relatively high and the degree of dominance concentrated. While both the biodiversity index of Shannon-Wiener and evenness index of Peilou were far lower than those of China.5. Different methods of analysis uncovered that five wetlands had different conservation value. Hui River wetland had very high conservation value for the cranes. While the biodiversity index of the Dalai Lake wetland and the Argun River wetland were relatively high, so the overall protection for the ecological system was especially important. The Morigele River wetland and Erka wetland also had important conservation value for some of the rare waterfowl. Although included in the conservation area system, Erka Wetland and Hulieyetu Wetland of Argun River have not received effective protection. Morigele River is outside the conservation area system, which is at present the key area for tourism development in Old Barag Banner, but the normal habitat for wetland birds is not protected.6. The analysis of biodiversity index of Shannon-Wiener on the Falconiformes birds in the studying area showed that the diversity index of Falconiformes birds at the Argun River wetland was the highest. Maybe this was related to the location of this area where was situated at the juncture area of three major ecosystems, namely forest, grasslands and wetland. G-F index appeared erroneous judgment because of the existence of the single-genera families, which caused the failure of the analysis on the diversity of Falconiformes at this area. While different classification systems of birds would also affect the computed results of G-F index.7. The maximum likelihood method and Bayes method were applied to construct the phylogenetic tree using mitochondrial genomes of Falconiformes birds. And the result showed that 17 species of Falconiformes birds divided into two branches obviously. The first branch was Falconidae, while the second branch included Accipitridae, Pandionidae and Sagittariidae. The relationship between Falconidae and Accipitridae was relatively far, so the result supported that Accipitridae, Pandionidae and Sagittariidae should be incorporated into Accipitriformes and the original falcon belonged to Falconiformes.