Relationship between hatching success, nest location and egg traits in Kentish plovers <i>Anarhynchus alexandrinus</i> breeding in an oasis wetland in the Sahara Desert, Algeria

The habitats of many species are distributed unevenly and heterogeneously across geographic space and suitable habitats may form isolated “habitat islands” surrounded by hostile environment. We studied Kentish plovers Anarhynchus alexandrinus (formerly Charadrius alexandrinus) occurring in a wetland connected to the Chott Ain El Beida, an ephemeral saline lake located within the Oasis of Ouargla, the Sahara Desert, Algeria. Given the geographic isolation of the study site, we anticipated high hatching success and specific patterns of variation in basic reproductive traits. Nesting success was relatively high in our study population, with 84–94% of initiated clutches being finally completed. The central finding of our study is that the relatively very high hatching success of individual Kentish plover clutches (72–89%) was affected by nest characteristics and egg sizes through interactions with nest orientation, and directly by nest distance from water. Egg sizes decreased across the study years, likely in response to the deterioration of the wetland habitat. All of this suggests that, despite many environmental limitations, desert wetlands are capable of supporting the reproductive success of Kentish plovers.