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      Aerial surveys of waterbirds in Australia

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          Abstract

          Tracking long-term environmental change is important, particularly for freshwater ecosystems, often with high rates of decline. Waterbirds are key indicators of freshwater ecosystem change, with groups reflecting food availability (e.g. piscivores and fish). We store waterbird (species abundance, numbers of nests and broods) and wetland area data from aerial surveys of waterbirds across Australia, mostly at the species’ level (∼100 species) from three aerial survey programs: Eastern Australian Waterbird Survey, National Survey and Murray-Darling Basin wetlands. Across eastern Australia, we survey up to 2,000 wetlands annually (October, since 1983), along 10 survey bands (30 km wide), east to west across about one third of Australia. In 2008, we surveyed 4,858 wetlands across Australia and each year (since 2010) we survey the major wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin. These data inform regulation of hunting seasons in Victoria and South Australia, Game bird culling in NSW, State of the Environment Reporting, environmental assessments, river and wetland management, the status of individual species and identification of high conservation sites.

          Abstract

          Measurement(s) population • numbers of waterbird species • brood size • nest count
          Technology Type(s) visual observation method
          Factor Type(s) year • geographic location
          Sample Characteristic - Organism Aves
          Sample Characteristic - Environment wetland area
          Sample Characteristic - Location Australia

          Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: 10.6084/m9.figshare.12280112

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          Most cited references34

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          Scientific Foundations for an IUCN Red List of Ecosystems

          An understanding of risks to biodiversity is needed for planning action to slow current rates of decline and secure ecosystem services for future human use. Although the IUCN Red List criteria provide an effective assessment protocol for species, a standard global assessment of risks to higher levels of biodiversity is currently limited. In 2008, IUCN initiated development of risk assessment criteria to support a global Red List of ecosystems. We present a new conceptual model for ecosystem risk assessment founded on a synthesis of relevant ecological theories. To support the model, we review key elements of ecosystem definition and introduce the concept of ecosystem collapse, an analogue of species extinction. The model identifies four distributional and functional symptoms of ecosystem risk as a basis for assessment criteria: A) rates of decline in ecosystem distribution; B) restricted distributions with continuing declines or threats; C) rates of environmental (abiotic) degradation; and D) rates of disruption to biotic processes. A fifth criterion, E) quantitative estimates of the risk of ecosystem collapse, enables integrated assessment of multiple processes and provides a conceptual anchor for the other criteria. We present the theoretical rationale for the construction and interpretation of each criterion. The assessment protocol and threat categories mirror those of the IUCN Red List of species. A trial of the protocol on terrestrial, subterranean, freshwater and marine ecosystems from around the world shows that its concepts are workable and its outcomes are robust, that required data are available, and that results are consistent with assessments carried out by local experts and authorities. The new protocol provides a consistent, practical and theoretically grounded framework for establishing a systematic Red List of the world’s ecosystems. This will complement the Red List of species and strengthen global capacity to report on and monitor the status of biodiversity
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            Rapid population decline in migratory shorebirds relying on Yellow Sea tidal mudflats as stopover sites

            Migratory animals are threatened by human-induced global change. However, little is known about how stopover habitat, essential for refuelling during migration, affects the population dynamics of migratory species. Using 20 years of continent-wide citizen science data, we assess population trends of ten shorebird taxa that refuel on Yellow Sea tidal mudflats, a threatened ecosystem that has shrunk by >65% in recent decades. Seven of the taxa declined at rates of up to 8% per year. Taxa with the greatest reliance on the Yellow Sea as a stopover site showed the greatest declines, whereas those that stop primarily in other regions had slowly declining or stable populations. Decline rate was unaffected by shared evolutionary history among taxa and was not predicted by migration distance, breeding range size, non-breeding location, generation time or body size. These results suggest that changes in stopover habitat can severely limit migratory populations.
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              Destruction of Wetlands and Waterbird Populations by Dams and Irrigation on the Murrumbidgee River in Arid Australia

              The Lowbidgee floodplain is the Murrumbidgee River's major wetland in southeastern Australia. From more than 300,000 ha in the early 1900s, at least 76.5% was destroyed (58%) or degraded (18%) by dams (26 major storages), subsequent diversions and floodplain development. Diversions of about 2,144,000 ML year(-1) from the Murrumbidgee River come from a natural median flow of about 3,380,000 ML year(-1) providing water for Australia's capital, hydroelectricity, and 273,000 ha of irrigation. Diversions have reduced the amount of water reaching the Lowbidgee floodplain by at least 60%, from 1888 to 1998. About 97,000 ha of Lowbidgee wetland was destroyed by development of the floodplain for an irrigation area (1975-1998), including building of 394 km of channels and 2,145 km of levee banks. Over 19 years (1983-2001), waterbird numbers estimated during annual aerial surveys collapsed by 90%, from an average of 139,939 (1983-1986) to 14,170 (1998-2001). Similar declines occurred across all functional groups: piscivores (82%), herbivores (87%), ducks and small grebe species (90%), large wading birds (91%), and small wading birds (95%), indicating a similar decline in the aquatic biota that formed their food base. Numbers of species also declined significantly by 21%. The Lowbidgee floodplain is an example of the ecological consequences of water resource development. Yanga Nature Reserve, within the Lowbidgee floodplain, conserved for its floodplain vegetation communities, will lose these communities because of insufficient water. Until conservation policies adequately protect river flows to important wetland areas, examples such as the Lowbidgee will continue to occur around the world.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                richard.kingsford@unsw.edu.au
                Journal
                Sci Data
                Sci Data
                Scientific Data
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                2052-4463
                10 June 2020
                10 June 2020
                2020
                : 7
                : 172
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0004 4902 0432, GRID grid.1005.4, Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, , Environmental and Earth Sciences, UNSW, ; Sydney, NSW 2052 Australia
                [2 ]New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, 4 Parramatta Square, 12 Darcy Street, Parramatta, 2150 NSW Australia
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6807-0142
                Article
                512
                10.1038/s41597-020-0512-9
                7287086
                32522998
                5500de40-87f3-4d36-981e-09ff66417d60
                © Crown 2020

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ applies to the metadata files associated with this article.

                History
                : 18 February 2020
                : 27 April 2020
                Funding
                Funded by: See above
                Categories
                Data Descriptor
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2020

                biodiversity,environmental impact
                biodiversity, environmental impact

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