Investigation of birds' density and species diversity of Amir-Kelayeh international wetland during a 10-year period (2007-2016), based on winter census

Amir-Kelayeh international wetland is as one of the important wintering habitats for birds. In present study, the density and diversity of bird species (waterbird, wader and terrestrial bird dependent to the wetland) has been studied in Amir-Kelayeh international wetland based on the semi-winter birds census data, over a 10-year statistical period. During this ten-year period, the total number of 334776 birds from 46 different birds species was recorded in this wetland. Among the studied years, the highest number of 72188 birds in 2008 and the lowest number of 1877 birds in 2015 have been counted. In terms of quality and food items, this wetland and it's around paddy fields is a good refuge for the Anatidae and Rallidae family that with 64.86 and 50.06 percent of frequency depending on their diet, have the most abundant among the identified family. The biodiversity indexes showed a relatively high amounts, but with a declining trend, and also the index of species evenness indicated a stable trend during this 10-year period in Amir-Kelayeh Wetland. Considering the decreasing trend of biodiversity indexes in Amir-Kelayeh wetland in recent years, increasing the wetland ecological conservation through the management plans such as habitat structure conservation, and illegal hunting and pollution control is recommended.