The Ecological Influence Of Huai-Yan Highway On Avian Community

Road net has been constructed in a large scale since 1970's in China. With the development of the economy, the development of the road net in China is now in a high-speed phase. The disadvantages of the road net have been known step by step.But up to now, there are still very limited studies of the road impact on wildlife in China, because the investigations in this area were just made since recent years.As a very important part of the Jiangsu State Road Net"Four Vertical - Four Horizontal and Four United", Huai-Yan Highway is also the east part of Xu-Su-Huai-Yan Highway, which is a part of the Tianjing-Shanwei Highway, . From Nov. 2006 to Dec. 2007, the investigation had been given on avian community in 4 study sites (Sheyanghu, Yancheng, Jingkou, Tongyuhe). The main contents of this study were the composition, species richness, preponderant species of the birds along Huai-Yan highway and the vehicle volume effect on birds community. The main results were as follows:1. There were 83 species of birds belonged to 31 familis and 12 orders according to the investigation. We recorded 54 species of birds, in Yanchengnan area, 73 species in Sheyanghu area, 46 species in Jingkou area, 50 species in Tongyuhe area.2. The number of preponderant species was found larger in 200m and 400m sampling panes than it was in 0m sampling panes. Rare species was not found in Jingkou and Tongyuhe. But in Sheyanghu, the number of rare species was found larger in 0m sampling panes than it was in 200m and 400m sample panes. Further more, the density of birds in each study site shown direct proportion with the distance difference of the sample panes to the high way, that is, the density of birds in each sample panes of a study site increased as the distance increasing from the samples panes to the Huai-Yan Highway.3. The bird species richness was much higher in summer in the 0m sampling panes in every study sites, and in other seasons the bird species richness enhanced as the distance increasing from the sampling panes to the Huai-Yan highway.4. With ANCOVA analysis, the change of the vehicle volume, at the scope of 0~600 per hour, did not obviously impact the change of the bird density and spieces along the highway, but the change of the seasons or the differnce of the sampling panes (habitate type) did, if the sampling panes and seasons, or only sampling panes, or only seasons was used as the factor of modification. Father more, the change of the vehicle volume did not obviously impact the change of bird spieces, but the change of bird density, when the 0m sampling panes was considered as a whole.5. According to the study results and habitat protective measure of design and construction in Huai-Yan highway, the existing problems were analyzed and some strategies and proposals about the evaluation on highway ecological influence were presented.