hh.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Predatoriska fåglars effekt på populationsdynamiken hos amfibier
Halmstad University, School of Business, Innovation and Sustainability.
2021 (Swedish)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

The global amphibian population is rapidly declining. Although many threats that affect amphibians are known, there are many contributing factors which are not fully understood. For adult amphibians, the largest part of the mortality comes from predation. We know of many predators which prey upon amphibians, but to what extent they affect the populations has not been subject to much investigation. Neither has the effects of specific taxa or species of predators. Birds are reputed amphibian-eaters, and they often occur in the same habitats. Both birds and amphibians often select for wetlands and other water bodies with high biodiversity, that often support a high diversity and/or density of birds as well as amphibians. The fact that a prey might flourish in an area that one of its strongest predators also inhabits might seem controversial. Especially when taking into account that it is often the density of predators that best explains the population growth of prey species. In this review, I investigate what effects large amounts of birds might have on amphibian populations as a result of their predation on adults. I consider how the effects might differ with high vs low densities of both prey and predator, and whether an eventual effect might impact the survival of a metapopulation differently depending on its size and spatial distribution. As an example of a habitat where both bird and amphibian species occur in large numbers, I use Trönninge ängar - a bird conservation area just outside the city of Halmstad, where populations of both amphibians and birds have been increasing over the last years. My results show that high densities of predatory birds in such communities could potentially cause declines in amphibian populations, but that this impact is softened when the population is more widely distributed in the area. There are also possibilities that birds do not only affect amphibians by predation, but also might facilitate their distribution by reducing other predators. Thus, bird predation in itself might not be a sufficient predictor for their effect on amphibian populations, as the relationship might be more complex than simple predator-prey interactions. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. , p. 42
Keywords [en]
Amphibian population dynamics, amphibian population ecology, birds amphibians
Keywords [sv]
populationsdynamik amfibier, populationsekologi amfibier, predation amfibier, fåglar amfibier
National Category
Biological Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-45825OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-45825DiVA, id: diva2:1608341
Subject / course
Biology
Educational program
Conservation and Diversity, 180 credits
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2021-11-03 Created: 2021-11-03 Last updated: 2021-11-03Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(1289 kB)109 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT02.pdfFile size 1289 kBChecksum SHA-512
9a4a7a5897c5c3b634dcac4c6d71ceb62013fa791a622606badb8a38a27511969254a5c62e0981f12f32446fe0b5264245d32709c52bab2a11630a77882714ee
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
School of Business, Innovation and Sustainability
Biological Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 109 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 171 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf