Causes of diving duck population declines at Lough Neagh

 

Tufted duck is one of the species being examined

Project code 

QU08-08

Contact

Dr. Neil Reid

Project staff

Irena Tomankova

Supervisor(s)

Dr Hansjoerg Kunc & Dr Chris Harrod

Client

NIEA

Funding

NHRP

Client Officer(s)

Ian Enlander

Collaborator(s)

Dr Tony Fox (University of Aarhus, Denmark)

Start date

01/10/2008

End date

30/09/2012

The Lough Neagh and Lough Beg Special Protection Area (SPA) is the most important site for diving ducks in the UK and Ireland and is the most important non-estuarine SPA in the UK. The site is also designated as an ASSI and a Ramsar site. 
 
Recent changes in wintering numbers of diving duck at Lough Neagh have shown significant downward trends since 2001-02. These have been of a sufficient magnitude to trigger red alerts for Tufted Duck Aythya fuligula (-70% to 9,000), Pochard Aythya ferina (-80% to 8,000) and Goldeneye Bucephala clangula (-71% to 4,000), and an amber alert for Scaup Aythya marila (-48% to 2,600). Red or Amber alerts were triggered for 11 of 18 waterbird species evaluated under the WeBS alerting procedure. 

Lough Neagh

Despite a range of studies on the diving duck populations on the Lough the underlying causes of declines remain unclear. Potential site-related issues which are considered contributory mechanisms include reductions in food supply (related to changing water quality), whilst climate change may contribute to the redistribution of ducks throughout Europe and the British Isles.
 
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) have provided long-term temporal data for each of the diving duck species which will help us examine the magnitude of declines. We are also collecting biological material which can tell us what the birds are eating and where they have migrated from.

This 4 year PhD, funded by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) through the Natural Heritage Research Partnership (NHRP), aims to: 

  1. Re-examine historical abundance data for diving ducks at Lough Neagh 
  2. Identify the diet of diving ducks at Lough Neagh 
  3. Determine benthic prey availability 
  4. Identify nocturnal foraging ranges of diving ducks at Lough Neagh 
  5. Assess the role of migratory short-stopping. 

The Natural Heritage Research Partnership (NHRP) is funded by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA). The British Association of Shooting and Conservation (BASC) are our main NGO collaborator.