Water Level Regulation Regime Shifts Drive Divergent Foraging Habitat Use by Wintering Hooded Cranes (Grus monacha) in Shallow Gate‐controlled Lakes of the Yangtze Floodplain
Yong Fang, Yundong Zhong, Lizhi Zhou, Ming Liang · 2026
Read Water Level Regulation Regime Shifts Drive Divergent Foraging Habitat Use by Wintering Hooded Cranes (Grus monacha) in Shallow Gate‐controlled Lakes of the Yangtze Floodplain by Yong Fang, Yundong Zhong, Lizhi Zhou, Ming Liang (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13249527.txt.
Description
Fang and colleagues watched wintering hooded cranes adjust to managed water levels, in a 2026 Ecology and Evolution study. Shengjin and Caizi lakes, on the Yangtze floodplain, are drained and refilled through gates, which reshapes the mudflats and shallows where cranes feed. From November 2024 to March 2025 the team counted foraging birds and measured food and ground conditions.
At Shengjin Lake, cranes fed mostly on mudflats, following food abundance as classic foraging theory predicts. At Caizi Lake, where natural habitat shrank, three quarters of feeding happened in rice paddies near roads, trading safety for calories. The authors warn that such coping carries survival costs and should guide how gate schedules are set.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Yong Fang, Yundong Zhong, Lizhi Zhou, Ming Liang |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 40 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |