Abstract: Lakes in central Yunnan Province are important wintering habitats for waterbirds in the YunnanGuizhou Plateau. It is important to reveal the characteristics of wintering waterbirds 〖JP2〗community for conservation and wetland resources management. In the winter of 2017-2018 and 2018-〖JP〗2019, we examined the waterbirds community characteristics by the point sampling method in lakes of central Yunnan (Dianchi Lake, Fuxian Lake, Qilu Lake and Xingyun Lake). A total of 40 species, 7 orders and 9 families were recorded. Waterbirds communities were dominated by ducks, accounting for 30% of the total species richness. Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus was the dominant species, occupying 91.92% of total individuals. With non-parametric species richness estimates, we found that waterbirds richness was the highest in Dianchi (37.17±1.13), followed by Qilu (33.70±1.74) and Xingyun (32.05±1.80), and was lowest in Fuxian (17.78±0.43). Evenness index (Simpson index) of waterbirds was the highest in Fuxian (0.63±0.03), followed by Xingyun (0.53±0.07) and Qilu (0.52±0.05), and the lowest in Dianchi (0.11±0.03). Species richness was negatively correlated with the average water depth of the lake (r=-0.509,P<0.05), but not with lake size (r=0.286, P>0.05). Results of cluster analysis of community composition similarity showed that community composition in Dianchi was quite different from other three lakes. The community composition in Qilu and Xingyun were similar. In conclusion, Dianchi had high species richness (80.00% of total species) and abundance (89.69% of total number), which plays a great role in the conservation of waterbird diversity.

Key words: land-bridge island, ground dwelling beetles, habitat fragmentation, species diversity., mainland study site