Possible environmental and meteorological factors underlying scaly-breasted munia Lonchura punctulata (L.) mass mortality events in Southeast Asia’s urban and rural areas in September 2021

Abstract

AbstractMass bird mortality is a rare event. This event could be happened and could be a combination of numerous factors. It could be something that’s still completely unknown to us. In September 2021 in SE Asia, there were 2 mass bird mortality events of Lonchura punctulata. The first event happens on 9 September in rural area at 08.00 AM and second happens on 14 September at 12.00 PM in urban area. The results show that precipitation combined with the wind gust might be correlated with mass mortality. The results showed precipitation factors have contributed 71.18% (R2 = 0.714, P = 0.008) to the mortality and followed by wind gust with 28.81% contribution (R2 = 0.41, P = 0.08). The meteorological parameter was not the only factors affecting the mortality events. The landscapes in urban and rural areas have experienced fragmentations. Urban areas have severe fragmentation of vegetation covers with remaining vegetation covers were only 17.4% and patch density indices of 0.29. In contrast rural areas still have higher vegetation cover remnants about 21.12% and patch density indices of 0.93. Then severe meteorological events combined with the fragmented habitats of L. punctulata may explain the mass mortality of this bird species.