TOUR DU VALAT

A research centre for the conservation of Mediterranean wetlands

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Dispersal and conservation of the Greater Flamingo

Parading flamingoes

Project leader: Arnaud BECHET (See the CV)

Team:

Antoine Arnaud, Christophe Germain


Since 1977, a capture-resighting program has been conducted on Greater Flamingos in the Camargue, Southern France. Efforts were later initiated at Fuenta de Piedra in Spain in 1986, and at colonies on mainland Italy and in Sardinia in 1994. Birds banded in these areas have been observed, often breeding at other colonies, throughout the Mediterranean, West Africa, and Asia minor. Similarly, birds ringed in Iran have been recovered throughout Asia, the Mediterranean and East Africa. Thus, all evidence suggests that the structure of the Greater Flamingo population in the Western Palearctic is that of a metapopulation (i.e., a population comprised of interconnected subpopulations) whose range extends throughout Mediterranean Europe, Western Asia, and many parts of Africa.
It is now widely recognized that the sound conservation of bird populations must be planned at a geographic level appropriate to the processes conditioning their dynamics. In the case of metapopulations, the appropriate geographic scale may reflect the dispersal strategies rather than the migratory routes.

The main aim of this study is to obtain an understanding of the population dynamics of the Greater Flamingo and to identify the main environmental and/anthropogenic factors affecting its demographic traits. Our works rely on a network of NGOs and researcher who have decided to share their banding and count data. This networks use the Flamingo atlas (www.flamingoatlas.org) to collaborate and coordinate its activities. The pooling of the banding and resighting data from Spain, Italy and France in a unique database makes it possible to estimate dispersal rates of young and adult Greater Flamingos banded in this area. The recent development of capture-recapture models should make it possible to obtain unbiased estimates of these parameters.


Contents:


Issues :

Scientific issues

  • To widen our understanding of the environmental/individual determinants of dispersal/ recruitment rates, estimated for a three-site situation including Fuente de Piedra (Spain), Molentargius (Italy) and Fangassier (France), to a system with additional breeding sites
  • To improve our capacity to predict the trends of a subdivided population in the face of global changes.

Conservation issues

  • How to conserve a flagship species at a geographic level appropriate to its population dynamics?
  • How to provide conservation guidelines for species for which incomplete data are recorded over its breeding range?
  • How to conserve populations while preserving the natural disturbance that ultimately shaped their life history traits?

Partners:


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