Seasonal bird assemblages in a Mediterranean patchy wetland: corroborating the intermediate disturbance hypothesis

The structure of bird assemblages recorded in breeding and wintering period in a Mediterranean wetland of Central Italy was studied in order to evaluate their seasonal changes and the influence of land cover on their parameters. We identified three habitat macro-types, according to a man-disturbed gradient (from natural to man-made macro-types). Bird assemblages showed differences in relation to season and habitat type, either at quantitative (species richness, diversity index) or qualitative level (species composition and turnover, similarity). In winter, we obtained the higher values of mean species richness, Margalef richness, Shannon diversity, and β-diversity. The dendrogram of similarity showed a major clear-cut division between seasons, and a secondary division among habitat macro-types. In winter, assemblages were more rich and diverse, with a high turnover among point counts. The semi-natural habitat macro-types showed always the higher values of these indexes, with the exception of the β-diversity, which showed the highest value in winter but the lowest in the breeding period. The high mean values of richness (α-diversity) of the semi-natural habitat macro-types, especially in the breeding period could be mainly explained by the ‘intermediate disturbance hypothesis’; on the contrary, differences in turn-over (β-diversity) between the seasons are mainly due to seasonal changes in habitat heterogeneity of this habitat macro-type (from an arid homogeneous pasture to a patchy flooded one). A pattern of intermediate disturbance was evident at mean species richness level (significant values) but not at diversity index level (not significant values). These results could imply specific strategies for the management of small wetlands, focused on maintaining a regime of natural (flooding) and man-made (grazing) disturbances. KEY WORDS: bird assemblages, wetland patches, frequency, diversity, species turnover, intermediate disturbance hypothesis