Summer season waterfowl species diversity at Katavi national park in Tanzania
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Date
2014-02-07
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tanzania Journal of Natural and Applied Science
Abstract
This study on Waterfowl species diversity, richness and evenness was conducted at
Katavi National park in Tanzania in summer season of 2011.The study focused at
surveying on how water availability, primary productivity and vegetation cover affect
the diversity of Waterfowl in Lake Chada and Katavi. Point count technique was used
to count Waterfowl from seven stations established around the perimeter of each Lake.
Data revealed that the correlation coefficients (r) for water availability were 0.4019
and 0.3122; a value for primary productivity was 0.3437 and 0.7537 and for the
vegetation cover were 0.3437 and 0.04968 for the respective Chada and Katavi Lakes.
Species richness accounted for 2.6634 and 4.7079 for Lake Chada and Katavi
respectively. For the case of Species evenness (℮) the value for Lake Chada was 0.5770
while Lake Katavi had 0.6260. The study found also that, there was a difference in
waterfowl species diversity, richness and evenness between the two surveyed Lakes.It
implies that both biotic and abiotic factors affect species diversity differently at
different spatial heterogeneity. Lake Katavi has higher species richness and evenness
compared to Lake Chada. The study concludes that variation in ecological factors
affects the distribution and abundance of Waterfowl species during summer season at
the park.
Description
Research article
Keywords
Biotic factors, Species diversity, Species richness, Waterfowl, Wetlands