Meeting Abstract
Wetlands are vastly important in maintaining avian diversity worldwide. Aquatic, migratory species, and species that inhabit yearly rely heavily on wetlands. Management of wetlands should take into consideration biodiversity. I examined the annual and seasonal changes to biodiversity (species richness [R] and Shannon diversity index [H’]) in the San Elijo Lagoon, California over a 15 year period. I found that both species richness and Shannon diversity vary from year to year vastly. In particular, Fall and Winter H’ increased positively across years (R2 =0.677, p<0.0001 and R2 =0.577, p=0.001, respectively). The influence of seasons on biodiversity was examined to assess which seasons expressed the highest levels of biodiversity, and species richness and Shannon diversity values were highest in Spring. Wetland use varies greatly from season to season, but overall, the relatively high Shannon diversity values over the 15 years indicate consistently high levels of species diversity and evenness throughout the wetland.
