While her findings are still very preliminary, a UWindsor biology student has found that newly reconstructed wetlands in the oil sands of Alberta support a greater variety of bird species than their natural, old-growth counterparts.

Masters student Sheeva Nakhaie has been tracking birds in the area of Fort McMurray over the last three summers, counting species in existing boreal forests, as well as in those wetlands that have been mined for bitumen by petroleum companies and then restored to their original conditions.

She conducted visual sightings and audio counts of bird songs in 12 reconstructed wetlands and compared them to 17 natural forests, and recorded more than 70 species – an average of 15.2 in the constructed wetlands, compared to 13.7 species in the natural wetlands. The species ranged from the common sparrow to the rarer, duck-like hooded merganser.

The difference in those numbers may not be significant, Nakhaie said, but she pointed out that new wetlands tend to be smaller than the existing ones. It’s been ecologically proven that species richness tends to increase with area, so when she controlled for the size difference of the wetlands, the difference in numbers of species became more meaningful, she added.

“We’re not exactly sure why this is happening just yet,” said Nakhaie, who will present her findings in a poster at the 66th annual Canadian Conference For Fisheries Research, being held today and tomorrow at the St. Clair Centre for the Arts in cooperation with the Society of Canadian Limnologists and the Society of Wetland Scientists.

“New birds are coming in, but they may be transient species only there while the new wetland is developing,” she said. “We think that the balance between immigration and local extinction hasn’t happened yet.”

More than 300 scientists from across North America and the United Kingdom are in town for the conference which is focused on sustaining ecosystems that support fisheries, lakes and wetlands. Some of the conference themes include invasive species; Great Lakes fisheries and environmental policies; climate change; contaminants and trophic transfer; and disturbed ecosystems, threatened species and restoration.

Nakhaie, who works in the Biological Sciences lab of professor Jan Ciborowski, said she’s excited about sharing her findings at the conference.

“I think this is information that will be very useful for oil sands companies as they try to restore a lot of these open-pit mines,” she said.  “Understanding the relationship between wetland size and species richness and between plant and avian diversity will provide a better understanding of the habitat requirements needed to build and conserve sustainable wetlands comparable to those found naturally.”

Nakhaie will be writing up her findings in the form of a thesis which she will defend this spring. After graduating she hopes to find a biological consulting job that will keep her outdoors doing the kind of work that she did for her graduate research.

“I had a great time doing it,” she said. “I love being outside and it’s so beautiful out there. And you get to see so many species out there that you just don’t see around here.”