Project Challenge
At least 98% of the remaining critically endangered Siberian Cranes (Grus leucogeranus) overwinter exclusively at Poyang Lake, the largest inland freshwater lake in China. As the Chinese government makes plans to construct a dam that would restrict the lake’s outflows to the Yangtze River, the Siberian Crane’s critical wintering grounds may be greatly altered. Currently, the water levels of Poyang Lake and its many locally managed sub-lakes dramatically fluctuate in response to seasonal flood pulses. If a dam were to be constructed at the location of the lake’s outflow pathway, water levels in Poyang Lake would no longer undergo these dramatic shifts in lake stage, ultimately resulting ininstead staying at a relatively constant water level. The loss of a highly variable disturbance regime would likelycould result in a shift in the community composition of local vegetation, as well as an overall loss of biodiversityand likewise, a loss of foraging habitat for Siberian cranes.
Project Aim
Here our primary goals are we aim to assess which food items will be available and accessible to the Siberian Crane under different scenarios of post-dam hydrology, and to model if there will be enough suitable foraging habitat to sustain this critically endangered population.
We intend to investigate three primary objectives:
- Determine daily consumption rates of Vallisneria and alternative food items by Siberian Cranes;
- Determine the abundance of alternative food resources for Siberian Cranes when Vallisneria is not available;
- Model how a proposed dam could alter water levels and vegetation zones to project areas of suitable foraging habitats available to the Siberian Cranes.