Bird survey of Budai salt pans in Taiwan

Shu Yen Huang1, Hui Ling Chen1

1 Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute, No.1, Minsheng E. Rd., Jiji Township, Nantou County 552, Taiwan (R.O.C.), 55244, , Taiwan

Corresponding author(s): Shu Yen Huang (shuyung2001@tesri.gov.tw)Hui Ling Chen (kestrell.cheng@gmail.com)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Abstract

The Budai salt pans had been abandoned in 2002 , and gradually became an important habitat for several species of waterbirds on the EAAF in Taiwan. In order to improve the quality of habitats in the Budai salt pans, the project investigated several environmental factors and bird populations. About bird survey, it has obtained 51,254 records of bird sampling data from 51 salt pans includes 1,030 ha in Budai salt pans of Taiwan from 2016 to 2022.

Keywords: sampling event, Aves, salt pan, Budai, Samplingevent

Project details

Project title: A preliminary study on enhancing waterbird habitats of Budai salt pan
Personnel: Ruey Shing Lin, Shu yen Huang, Meng Chi Hung, Wan Jyun Chen, Da Li Lin
Funding: Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, R.O.C. (Taiwan)

Data published through GBIF: https://ipt.taibif.tw/resource?r=bird_survey_of_budai_salt_pan_in_taiwain

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: From 2016 to 2022, the survey recorded 135 species of aves from a total of 33 families. Within the records.
Taxonomic ranks
Class: Ave
Common names: Bird

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: The study site of this project is Budai town, located in the southwestern coast of Taiwan (23°22'24.9"N to 23°18'39.1"N, 120°08'57.9"E to 120°11'23.4"E, Fig. 2). The Budai town is a land subsidence area (WRPI 2007), and the salt pans are below sea level (elevation -1.8 to -0.5 m, Kuo and Wang 2018). The temperature and rainfall data from 2010 to 2017 were obtained from the Chiayi weather station, located 30 km northeast of the sample plot; on average, the month with the lowest temperature is January (16.7 °C), the month with highest temperature is July (20.1 °C). The year with the lowest recorded rainfall was 2011 with a total of 1021.7 mm of rain; the year with highest recorded rainfall was 2013, with 2580.5 mm of rain. The Budai salt pans are brackish wetlands. According to the field investigation records of this study, the salinity was highest in May (30.9 ± 7.9 psu) and lowest in August (8.4 ± 2.0 psu).
Coordinates: 23°18'36''N and 23°22'48''N Latitude; 120°9'0''E and 120°11'24''E Longitude 

Methods

Method step description: We scanned each sample plot with a monocular telescope and recorded the bird species, abundance, and behavior (foraging/non-foraging). For this dataset, waterbirds were complete inspected in each survey; complete records of landbirds were only created for January-March, 2016 and January and December, 2019  and January, 2020-2022(see DwC event “samplingProtocol”). Waterbirds include shorebirds, waterfowls, wading birds (herons, egrets, storks, spoonbills and ibises), gulls, terns, cormorants, grebes, coots, moorhens and kingfishers. To understand whether the rise and fall of the tide influenced birds in salt pans, further surveys were conducted in 2017 –2020. Specifically, March - May and September - December in 2017, January – May and September – December in 2018, and January – March in 2019 and January-March, 2020. Five salt pans (10-01, 10-02W, 10-03W, 10-11, 10-12) were selected, and bird surveys were conducted during high tide and low tide of the same day (see DwC event “eventRemarks”). High tide was defined as three hours before and after high tide, low tide was three hours before and after low tide.
Study extent description: The sample plot included the seven main areas of the Budai salt pans (old area 5, area 6, area 7, area 8, area 9, area 10, and area P), consisting of a total of 51 salt pan sampling sites. Within the sample plot, area 6 and area 7 are currently listed as Important Wetlands in Taiwan by the Wetland Conservation Act. The area of every salt pan is between 3.4-48.4 ha. The total sample plot is about 1,030 ha. Significantly, the construction of solar photovoltaic facilities in area 8, following November 2018, resulted in a reduction of waterbird habitat areas.
Sampling description: Monthly bird surveys were conducted between 2016 and 2022. Each survey lasted 1 to 2 days and employed the counting flocks method.
Quality control description: To maintain survey quality, several experienced investigators carried out the surveys. In January, 2016, and January and December, 2019, and January , 2020-2022 in accordance with the Taiwan New Year Bird Count, other volunteers took part in the survey. To reduce errors while documenting the recorded data, if the bird species was rarely observed or the quantity recorded was abnormal, we reconfirmed the details with the investigators. The classification system employed was the eBird Taxonomy v2022 (Clemnets et al. 2022), and the Chinese names of the birds were referenced from the Checklist of the Birds of Taiwan (Ding et al. 2023).

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Bird survey of Budai salt pans in Taiwan
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.taibif.tw/archive.do?r=bird_survey_of_budai_salt_pan_in_taiwain
Publication date of data: 2023-11-13
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2018-09-17
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Ding, T.-S., C.-S. Juan, R.-S. Lin, Y.-J. Tsai, J.-L. Wu, J. Wu and Y.-H. Yang. 2023. The  2023 TWBF Checklist of the Birds of Taiwan. Taiwan Wild Bird Federation. Taipei, Taiwan.
Kuo, P. H. and H. W. Wang. 2018. Water management to enhance ecosystem services in a coastal wetland in Taiwan. Irrigation and Drainage 61: 130-139.
Water Resources Planning Institute (WRPI). 2007. Environmental restoration and sustainable revitalization in Chiayi coast region. WRPI, Taiwan.