Recreational activities affecting the habitat use by birds in Pampa’s wetlands, Argentina: Implications for waterbird conservation

The increasing popularity of outdoor recreational activities in recent years has resulted in elevated human disturbance of waterbird communities. Anthropogenic disturbance is defined as any human activity that constitutes a stimulus sufficient to disrupt normal activities and/or distribution of animals relative to the situation in the absence of that activity. The goals of this study were (1) to quantify changes in habitat use by waterbirds caused by the proximity of people’s activities to the shoreline, in Los Padres Lagoon Reserve (Argentina), (2) to evaluate differential responses of waterbird groups caused by this human disturbance, and (3) to propose management guidelines to improve waterbird conservation in Pampas lagoon. We performed bird surveys monthly in areas with high levels of disturbance (HD areas) and with no or low levels of disturbance (LD areas) via recreational activities during days with (weekends) and without (weekdays) presence of people close to the lagoon. We recorded 34 bird species using the lagoon. The bird richness and abundance in HD areas was higher in days without recreational activities, conversely, in LD areas we found no differences in these parameters between days. Waders were found to be the group most vulnerable to disturbance, since these birds were only recorded in HD areas in days without human activity. Podicipedidae, as a group were less affected by recreational activities. We detected changes in the waterbird assembles and structure in relation to the presence of people on the shoreline. Our results in this study suggest direct effects of recreational activities on the habitat use of waterbirds. The buffer area defined by the current Reserve management strategy is working properly, and the impact of recreational activities on transitional area has only instantaneous effects on waterbirds because they return to that area in absence of disturbance. However, it should be considered that we only estimated the response to short-term effects of these activities on the waterbird community. Further studies should assess long-term effects.