Plant Communities of the Tern Sanctuary on the Matsu Islands as a Breeding Habitat for Seabirds

Abstract

The Matsu Islands Tern Refuge comprises eight reefs located at a relay station on the East Asian bird migration route, and it attracts many transiting, wintering, or breeding birds to inhabit and live on the reefs every year. In order to understand the compositions of plant communities as a breeding habitat for seabirds, we investigated the plant communities of the eight reefs. A total of 130 plots of 10 × 10 square meters were established, from which we found 107 species of plants in 102 genera and 51 families. Among this, we found one critically endangered (CR) species, four vulnerable (VU) species, and three near-threatened (NT) species. The result of two-way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN) and indicator value (IndVal) showed 130 samples were divided into 11 vegetation types; most of the vegetation types had significant indicator species. We also use the two-way to present the plot of detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) by vegetation types and reefs. Moreover, this result reveals that these samples were more clearly cluster divided by islands. Our results reveal that the compositions and characteristics of plant communities were related clearly to the environmental factors for each reef in the Matsu Islands Tern Refuge. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) indicated that species composition of vegetation yielded high correlation with soil property, especially with soil pH. In addition, we found that the traces of bird activity is relevant to the characteristics and structures of plant communities. We found that the plant communities comprising low-grass shrubs would provide relatively soft nesting materials and sheltering effects for eggs or hatchlings for terns. Compared to low-grass shrubs, the traits of high-grass shrubs would not be beneficial to nest for breeding of terns on the ground, and no nested trace was found in these plant communities.