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Abstract:

Protected areas are a critical aspect towards safeguarding biodiversity with impacts on climate change and carbon sequestration. This study presents the results of the analysis on the living conditions offered to aquatic birds by the aquatic habitats of ROSPA0143 Upper Tisa protected area and highlights the importance of the aquatic habitats from Teplița for the conservation of biodiversity. Teplița aquatic system registers the largest number of aquatic species (66 out of a total of 68 for the entire protected area), of species that occur only here (22), of those nesting exclusively at Teplița (36.84% of the total nesting aquatic species) as well as the largest populations of aquatic species that are important for conservation. The vegetal carpet that supports the fauna has a simplified structure due to anthropic pressures, being comprised of three types of hygrophilous habitats, but with a high degree of ruderalization. Water quality analysis reveals a slightly more basic pH value for Tisa than for the 3 lakes in the area. Also, high values of dissolved oxygen and oxygen saturation determined for Tisa and the three lakes reflect a good level of oxygenation, above the minimum of 6.5-8 mg·L^-1 required for healthy water. In accordance to water legislation, all measured parameters (i.e., alkalinity, Na, NH⁴⁺, NO^2-, NO^3-, Cl, iron) fall within the very good, good, and moderate quality classes. Dissolved copper, however, reveals a degraded water quality for lake 3 with a concentration slightly higher than the legal limit (0.123 mg·L^-1).