PS 22-44 - Avifauna diversity in a changing ecological system at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract: Baseline Information for avifauna is essential for bio conservation and protection from ecosystem destruction as birds are useful indicators of ecological changes. A survey of avifauna using line transect method, was conducted to evaluate the composition, abundance and diversity of bird species within the three campuses of University of Port Harcourt for 12 weeks. A pair of binoculars and camera as well as a key (Birds of West Africa) were used for avifauna identification. Shannon-Wiener diversity (H) and Equitability (EH) indices were used to determine the species diversity and evenness of the campus while variation at the three campuses was ascertained using IMB SPSS version 20 for Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The Post-HOC (Turkey HSD) and Rprogramming language was used to verify if there was any significant relationship between the species. A total of 1,474 birds sampled amounting to 76 species from 32 families and 13 orders were recorded in the three campuses. The Abuja campus had the highest diversity (H = 3.32662) and species evenness of the three campuses was (EH) = 0.795. Corvus albus had the highest abundance of 11.67% and every family had a significant relationship except the relationship between caprimulgiformes and gruiformes. The result supports other findings that diversity increases with population in an ecosystem. However, increase in deforestation and urbanization on the campus without commensurate planting of trees will lead to loss of avifauna abundance and diversity.