Effects of habitat and livestock on nest productivity of the Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii in Bukhara Province, Uzbekistan

Koshkin, Maxim, Burnside, Robert J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2859-7294, Packman, Charlotte E., Collar, Nigel J. and Dolman, Paul M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9340-2791 (2016) Effects of habitat and livestock on nest productivity of the Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii in Bukhara Province, Uzbekistan. European Journal of Wildlife Research, 62 (4). 447–459. ISSN 1612-4642

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Abstract

To inform population support measures for the unsustainably hunted Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii (IUCN Vulnerable) we examined potential habitat and land-use effects on nest productivity in the Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan. We monitored 177 nests across different semi-arid shrub assemblages (clay-sand and salinity gradients) and a range of livestock densities (0–80 km-2). Nest success (mean 51.4%, 95% CI 42.4–60.4%) was similar across four years; predation caused 85% of those failures for which the cause was known, and only three nests were trampled by livestock. Nesting begins within a few weeks of arrival when food appears scarce, but later nests were more likely to fail owing to the emergence of a key predator, suggesting foraging conditions on wintering and passage sites may be important for nest productivity. Nest success was similar across three shrub assemblages and was unrelated to landscape rugosity, shrub frequency or livestock density, but was greater with taller mean shrub height (range 13–67 cm) within 50 m. Clutch size (mean = 3.2 eggs) and per-egg hatchability in successful nests (87.5%) did not differ with laying date, shrub assemblage or livestock density. We therefore found no evidence that livestock density reduced nest productivity across the range examined, while differing shrub assemblages appeared to offer similar habitat quality. Asian houbara appear well-adapted to a range of semi-desert habitats and tolerate moderate disturbance by pastoralism. No obvious in situ mitigation measures arise from these findings, leaving regulation and control as the key requirement to render hunting sustainable.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2016 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided 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.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	buffer effect,exploited population ,nest success,hatchability,pastoralism,sdg 15 - life on land ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/life_on_land
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	21 Jun 2016 12:04
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2022 01:04
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59425
DOI:	10.1007/s10344-016-1018-9

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