New research shows grazing management at farm dams improves bird biodiversity
Research by Sustainable Farms demonstrates how managing farm dams through grazing control and revegetation significantly boosts bird biodiversity.
Farm dams are common across Australian agricultural landscapes, primarily serving as water sources for livestock and irrigation. Despite their widespread presence, farm dams are often overlooked as potential habitats for wildlife.
The research investigated how different farm dam management approaches affect bird communities. Researchers compared three management types: unfenced dams with continuous grazing, unfenced dams with rotational grazing, and enhanced dams. Enhanced dams are dams that are fenced to restrict livestock access and have revegetation of native trees and shrubs around the dam.
The study, conducted across 109 farm dams on 34 farms across south-eastern Australia’s tsheep-wheat belt, found that enhanced dams supported a significantly greater number of birds and more species.
Golden-headed Cisticola (Cisticola exilis) at an enhanced farm dam.
Photo: David Smith, ANU
Enhanced dams attracted both a wider range of bird species and species with different ecological traits, such as varied diets, foraging behaviours, and habitat preferences – known as functional richness. An increase in functional richness indicates a broader variety of ecological roles among birds using enhanced dams compared to other dams.
Rotational grazing at unfenced dams, while also beneficial, primarily attracted common open-country bird species, such as Magpies and Starlings. The biodiversity benefits of rotational grazing were less pronounced compared to enhanced dams.
Waterbirds, showed neutral responses to the different management strategies. The researchers found that waterbirds preferred larger dams irrespective of grazing management.
These findings highlight that farm dam enhancement through livestock exclusion and native vegetation restoration can substantially benefit woodland bird communities, which includes many threatened and declining species. The research provides evidence supporting farm dam enhancement as a practical measure for improving biodiversity outcomes in farming landscapes.
With over 1.7 million farm dams across Australia, even modest improvements in dam management could make significant contributions to bird conservation in agricultural landscapes.
Reference
Enhanced farm dam at Hansonville, Victoria.
Photo: Amber Croft, ANU
