Breeding Habitat Use of Little Tern along Enshunada Coast-Tenryu River Continuum in Relation to Dam Development

Guangwei Huang^*

Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/jep.2015.63021                

Abstract

Breeding habitat of the Little Tern in a coast-river continuum was studied in relation to dam development. A habitat shift from coast to river occurred decades after dam construction as the dam-caused coastal erosion became manifested. On the other hand, the riverine habitat was affected by dam both positively and negatively. The positive aspect is the reduction of inundation risk for the habitat, and the negative effect is the vegetation development on the habitat. As a result, the bird did not abandon the riverine habitat although its physical characteristics may be considered as suboptimal. In addition, reasoning was given to explain why an artificially created habitat was not used by the bird. A general message resulting from this study is that species adaptive behaviors should be taken into consideration in assessing environmental impacts caused by human activities such as dam development.

Keywords

Little Tern, Riverine Habitat, Coastal Habitat, Dam, Erosion, Vegetation

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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