Long-term anthropogenic stressors cause declines in kingfisher assemblages in wetlands in southwestern India

Fragile wetland habitats are susceptible to multiple threats from anthropogenic activities. Direct waste deposition, habitat modification and overexploitation of fish have caused alternations in food webs in wetlands. Kingfishers are ecological indicators with the potential ability to respond to the minute changes in their microenvironment. Their abundance and distribution at wetland habitats are affected by multiple environmental factors. We studied the kingfisher assemblages in India to determine proximate and ultimate causes of their decline. We recorded the abundance of five species of kingfishers across five wetland habitats from 2011 to 2020 in Kerala, southwest coast of India. Kingfishers were counted twice in a month between 6.00 and 12.00 hrs. Air temperature, water temperature, humidity and turbidity were recorded. We measured fish diversity and abundance and organic waste as an additional explanatory variable. One-way ANOVA, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average model and structural equation modelling were used to determine which explanatory variables affected kingfisher populations. Air temperature, water temperature and turbidity increased significantly during the study and had negative effects on the abundance of kingfishers. Humidity decreased significantly but had no effect on the kingfisher abundance. Fish abundance declined and had a strong positive effect on the abundance of kingfishers. The analysis of incidence of wastes across the study areas revealed that, all the sites were severely polluted. We also observed drastic decline in the abundance of all the species of kingfishers studied across the sites with a rapid decline in Pied Kingfisher and slower decline in White-throated Kingfisher. Black-capped Kingfisher is a local migrant to the study areas and is already red listed and categorized as Vulnerable (VU). This study suggests that kingfisher assemblages are declining along with the health status of the habitat. Urgent action is needed to help in designing and implementing effective management strategies for the sustainability of wetlands in the region.