Irrigation and avifaunal change in coastal Northwest Mexico: has irrigated habit attracted threatened migratory species?

ABSTRACT: Irrigation in desert ecosystems can either reduce or increase species diversity. Groundwater pumping often lowers water tables and reduces natural wetlands, whereas canal irrigation often creates mesic habitat, resulting in great increases in avian diversity from irrigation. Here we compare a dataset of potential natural vegetation to recent datasets from areal and satellite imagery to show that 60% of the land in the coastal plain of southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa lying below 200 m elevation has been converted by irrigation to more mesic habitats. We then use the record of bird specimens in the world's museums from this same region of Mexico to examine the avian community before and after the development of extensive irrigation. In general these museum records show an increase in th

SUBMITTER: Rohwer S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4548487 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature