The Kazakh Steppe ecoregion is a vast area of open grassland in Kazakhstan. Home to many unique species, it is also under increasing pressure. A team of staff, including scientists from the RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science, visited the region back in June. In today’s blog Dr Rob Field (Senior Conservation Scientist) and Dr Adam Devenish (Conservation Scientist) explain.
Despite being one of the least protected terrestrial habitats on Earth, the Kazakh Steppe is home to millions of migratory birds, which stop to feed and rest, as well as several Critically Endangered species, such as the saiga antelope and sociable lapwing. This unique ecoregion, known for its vast open expanses, is increasingly being threatened by rapid infrastructure development, increasing human wildlife conflicts and climate change.
Kazakh steppe grassland © Michele Bowe
RSPB is working to preserve this important ecoregion through the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, which aims to establish a network of Protected Areas in Kazakhstan. As part of the Government of Kazakhstan commitment to safeguard the Kazakh Steppe ecoregion it has established a new Protected Area spanning 657,450 hectares in west Kazakhstan called Bokey-Orda State Nature Reserve and Ashiozek Sanctuary.
A team of RSPB scientists recently travelled to west Kazakhstan to support our local partners from the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK) in assessing the condition and biodiversity of this incredible understudied region of the world.
Baseline biodiversity and ecosystem service assessments
The first step to setting up any Protected Area, is to understand the condition of the habitats within it. Information which is required to not only track the effectiveness of the Protected Area, but also to facilitate in the identification of key species for further monitoring.
Saiga counts
Saiga antelope are endemic to Central Asia, and unique amongst antelope in having enlarged downward facing nostrils, said to aid in summer dust filtration and winter air warming, and required to cope with their harsh steppe environment. They are known to congregate to give birth, resulting in large aggregations at calving time. Calving locations often change from year to year. Prior to RSPB team’s arrival, ACBK staff and the local communities, aided by satellite telemetry data and drones, identified key calving areas within the Protected Area.
To assess the condition of the saiga population, the team counted both the size of the saiga calving aggregations, and the number of new-born saiga calves. New-born saiga (usually twins) lie low in the grass while the mother forages – this means they are fairly easy to track down and count, without causing too much disturbance.
Close up of a saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) calf hiding in the grass © Rob Field
On a few occasions, we stumbled upon saiga in distress – such as a male saiga with wire tangled around its feet. In this instance, our colleagues at ACBK were quick to spring into action to remedy the situation.
ACBK staff removing wire from the hind leg of an injured male saiga © Adam Devenish
We also often came across female saiga that had died while giving birth. Even these unfortunate events were not wasted, as we took the opportunity to set camera traps, as a way to get insight into the carnivore and scavenger communities active within the Protected Area.
ACBK staff setting a camera trap near the body of a dead female saiga © Adam Devenish
Habitat surveys
To assess the condition of the dominant habitat – desert steppe grassland - accurately, we spread our sampling efforts across as wide an area as possible. This presented a unique set of logistical challenges. For example, this area has a very sparse human population and consequently few roads, most of which are little more than dirt tracks across the steppe. This meant that access to remote sampling points was often difficult and slow, with more remote parts of the reserve inaccessible to flooding caused by recent rains.
Collapsed road © Adam Devenish
It would often take several hours to traverse the steppe, however, this time was well spent as it afforded the team the opportunity to sample birds of prey, such as the Endangered steppe eagle – which nests on the ground and can be found in high abundances in the region. Often though, this species can be found taking advantage of any high man-made vantage point, including road signs
Once we finally arrived at any given sampling location, the team would spread out to tackle different aspects of the survey. The botanists surveyed the floral communities – key indicators of grassland condition and grazing pressure.
ACBK staff taking biomass samples of the grassland plot © Michaela Butorova
Bird and mammal specialists conducted grassland species surveys, the latter consisting of counting the holes of the enigmatic ground squirrel – commonly referred to as susliks, and other mammals, including the corsac Fox.
A suslik foraging (left) © Rob Field and young corsac fox (right) © Adam Devenish
All together the information on flora and fauna are combined to give an indication of how intact steppe grasslands communities are within the Protected area. Moreover, it will feed directly into future longer term monitoring plans as we identify key indicators of grassland condition and resilience, using the presence and abundance of particular animal and plant species.
Wetland surveys
These new protected areas, in fact the whole steppe ecoregion, is more than just grassland. In fact, there are many lakes and wetlands, often brackish or saline. The Ashiozek river cuts through the reserve, where it eventually feeds into the salt pans (shallow saline lakes). Many animals, including domesticated livestock, depend on these tributaries for their survival.
Cows bathing in the Ashiozek to escape the flies and mosquitoes © Adam Devenish
As well as being an important source of water for wild and domesticated animals, it also harbours a potentially high numbers of unrecorded species. To this end, we are working with Nature Metrics to sample the vertebrate diversity of these riverine systems using environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys.
In the field this involves collecting water samples and pushing them through a filter – to capture bits of DNA present in the water stream. Back in Nature Metrics’ lab, they will sequence and categorise the DNA present, to match it to that of know species. The advantage of this approach is that it will not only allow us to detect species without using lethal catching techniques, but also it gives us the opportunity to road test a protocol before expanding sampling later in the year.
ACBK and RSPB staff take an eDNA water sample © Michaela Butorova
Carbon stocks
Temperate grasslands contain nearly a fifth of the world’s soil carbon reserves, and as such play an important role in the global carbon cycle. While extensive grasslands like the steppe regions of Eurasia do not hold as much carbon per unit area as peatlands or forests; permanent grassland soils do contain significant quantities, which are at risk through cultivation and poor management (e.g., over grazing).
The steppe soils of Russia and Kazakhstan have a long history of both grazing and cultivation, especially those areas on the fertile chernozem (black earth) soils. Several large-scale modeling studies have documented the extent of soil carbon loss across southern Russia and Northern Kazakhstan, due to large scale arable expansion in the soviet period. However, little is currently known about the influence of grazing of domestic and wild herbivores on the less fertile, more salty soils of the drier desert-steppe ecoregion, such as those within the Bokey Orda-Ashiozek area.
We suspect it’s likely that these soils hold less organic matter than soils in the fertile steppe areas, but that this may also be adversely affected by historic and current management related to grazing of large herds of cattle and horses, alongside the native saiga.
To this end, RSPB and ACBK staff collected soil samples, which alongside the descriptions of vegetation communities and grazer abundance, will allow us to determine how natural and human-induced pressures affect the relationship between grazers, vegetation, and soil carbon. Currently, we are awaiting the results of laboratory testing of soil samples in Kazakhstan, so we can start to examine these relationships in further detail.
Next steps
Steppe eagle perching on a road sign © Rob Field
It’s clear that even from this brief visit to the Kazakh steppes, that it is a complex socio-ecological system and in order to safeguard the biodiversity of the region and build resilience, we need to first work with local communities to better understand their livelihood needs. This is particularly important now more than ever, as increasing Saiga numbers have caused rising tension between the local pastoralists who use the grasslands for hay meadows, and which are inadvertently being trampled by the Saiga migrations.
With this in a mind, a team of RSPB social scientists are working ACBK to begin the next phase of fieldwork planning, which will seek to actively engage with local communities, to identify equitable socio-ecological solutions.
Building on the knowledge acquired through this fieldwork, we will soon begin working with local Protected Area management staff to design long-term monitoring plans. So, keep checking this space for further information.
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