Diversity and Relative Abundance of Avian Fauna of Karra River, Hetauda, Makwanpur, Nepal

Abstract

This study has been carried out with the objective of determining seasonal diversity, relative abundance and ongoing threats to birds and their comparative study on three land use gradient in Karra river belt, Hetauda. Eighteen kilometer of transect of Karra river were surveyed by stratifying it into three blocks on the basis of disturbance. Birds were surveyed within the months of Dec/Jan 2014(winter) and May/June 2015 (summer). Birds were surveyed by using line transect methods and call count methods. Only the bird heard and seen within the band up to 50m on either side of transect were recorded. Altogether 27 hours were spent in each season in the field. All the collected data were enter in a excel sheet and analyzed. Shannon-Wiener diversity index were used to calculate species diversity and Relative abundance of avian species was determined by using encounter rates that give crude ordinal scales of abundance. A total of 153 bird species were recorded belonging to 15 orders and 38 families. Order Passeriformes was found dominating order comprising 70 species and order Upupiformes was found to be least dominating order comprising only one species. Among 153 species, 98 species were resident, 37 species were winter visitor, 17 species were summer visitor and one species was found vagrant. One way ANOVA revealed that there was significant different (F = 0.8872, df= 2, P < 0.0422) in bird diversity in three different block in two different seasons. 130 species of birds were recorded from winter season and 74 species were recorded from summer season. Shannon winner diversity index shows that winter season (H=1.86) was more diverse than summer season (H=1.62). Evenness index showed that birds were evenly distributed in winter season (E=0.8815) than summer (E=0.8761). Karl Pearson‟s Correlation coefficient showed that there was not any relationship between bird species richness and river width (r= -0.155). However, bird species richness was found high in the area where the river width was buffered with good vegetation structure. Bird species richness was found high (126) in moderately disturbed land use type (block 2) than other supporting intermediate disturbance hypothesis. Out of 153 birds recorded, 26 were common in its relative abundance, 49 species were frequent, 73 were uncommon and one species- Common Myna were found most abundant. Habitat destruction, Pollution at the industrial belt, mining, overfishing, poaching and keeping of cage bird and lack of awareness were the major threats to birds around the study area.