Fauzi, Nur Athirah (2023) Ecology of waterbirds in south west Johor Coast, Malaysia. Masters thesis, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia.

Preview	Text 24p NUR ATHIRAH FAUZI.pdf Download (664kB) | Preview
	Text (Copyright Declaration) NUR ATHIRAH FAUZI COPYRIGHT DECLARATION.pdf Restricted to Repository staff only Download (480kB) | Request a copy
	Text (Full Text) NUR ATHIRAH FAUZI WATERMARK.pdf Restricted to Registered users only Download (5MB) | Request a copy

Abstract

Mangroves and mudflats play an important role in enriching the intertidal habitats with benthic communities for waterbirds to feed. Thus, the degradation of these intertidal habitats due to coastal reclamation might indirectly impact the prey availability and the populations of coastal waterbirds in South West Johor Coast. With more avian studies in Johor concentrated on forest birds, waterbird studies in coastal areas remained critically scarce in diversity documentation and feeding ecology aspects. This contributes to a huge gap in the conservation of waterbirds in the coast of Johor. Therefore, this research was conducted to study the diversity and abundance of waterbirds, their relationship with prey availability, and their feeding behaviour and diet composition. The study was conducted in three coastal mudflat sites along the South west Johor coast from November 2020 to May 2021. The direct observation technique was used to determine the abundance and feeding behaviour of waterbirds, meanwhile, benthic core sampling method was used to assess the availability of prey in all study sites. A total of 3,717 waterbird individuals comprised of 17 species were recorded in all three study sites. Apart from that, the study confirmed a positive numerical relationship between the abundance of waterbirds and the prey availability (R2=0.501). Overall, this study reveals that the feeding behaviour of the coastal waterbirds are highly influenced by their morphology. Large waterbirds recorded a higher percentage of successful attempts, even though lower feeding rates and shorter feeding times were measured. All this evidence pointed out that larger waterbirds are more efficient at feeding and fulfilling their energy requirement. At present, the results of this study will serve as an important baseline data as references for future studies on the conservation of coastal waterbirds along the South West Johor Coast

Actions (login required)

View Item