Modelling wetland habitat preferences of Lewin’s Rail Lewinia pectoralis pectoralis near Melbourne in southern Victoria

Comparatively little is known of the habitat requirements of the Vulnerable Eastern Australian Lewin’s Rail Lewinia pectoralis pectoralis and, currently, urban planning possibly overlooks the presence of this, and other, cryptic species of marsh bird. We used logistic regression analysis to identify the preferred habitat attributes of Lewin’s Rail, and developed a simple predictive model to assess the suitability of wetland habitats for this species. The 31 sites selected included wetlands where Lewin’s Rail was known to have occurred and other wetlands where the species was seemingly absent. We measured landscape variables and fine-scale habitat attributes at each of these wetland sites. We used the information-theoretic approach to model the data and ranked the models based on the second order Akaike’s Information Criterion, corrected for small sample size ( AICc ). In general, the best-fit models indicate that low, dense vegetation and the abundance of shrubs in adjoining vegetation are the most useful baseline indicators of the presence of Lewin’s Rail. Results suggest that even apparently degraded wetlands in urbanised landscapes can provide habitat for this species. The model provides a means of assessing the likelihood of occurrence of Lewin’s Rail at any wetland, and will allow assessment of habitat suitability and potential impacts of disturbance to be made with increased confidence by conservation and urban planners through the identification of specific areas where detailed on-ground survey is warranted.