Aquatic birds | adibarocas

The Peruvian Amazon is a bird biodiversity hospot. Manu National Park, where we study giant otter family groups, provides us a great opportunity to examine the diversity and abundance of freshwater birds and their preferred habitats.

Oxbow lakes are bodies of water rich with fish resources. We have quantified the habitat destruction that gold mining causes to these places by studying several oxbow lakes in the lower part of the Madre de Dios river, where mercury is also released in large quantities to the aquatic environment as a result of artisanal gold mining activities.

Little is known about the impacts of gold mining on freshwater animal communities in general and specifically on birds. Our recent analyses of bird species richness and abundance found that species that depend more strongly on the freshwater environment are more sensitive to the habitat fragmentation, depletion of fish resources and changes in water quality promoted by small-scale gold mining.

In our recent paper, we also conclude that by limiting the access of people to more remote oxbow lakes, protected areas such as Manu National Park and the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve are fulfilling their role of protecting freshwater bird communities.