Changes in local species richness of farmland birds in relation to land-use changes and landscape structure

Wretenberg, Johan; Pärt, Tomas; Berg, Åke

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2009.11.001

Cited by 109 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This is consistent with the hypothesis that Scops Owl declines have been driven by agricultural change (Arlettaz 1990;Arlettaz et al 1991;Bavoux et al 1997), a continent-wide process that has caused enormous reductions in European bird populations (e.g. Pain & Pienkowsky 1997;Tucker & Evans 1997;Wretenberg et al 2010;Flohre et al 2011). Therefore, the Scops Owl would be more likely to occur in areas where intensive agriculture doesn't dominate the landscape.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Habitat selection in a changing environment: the relationship between habitat alteration and Scops Owl (Aves: Strigidae) territory occupancy

Treggiari¹,

Gagliardone²,

Pellegrino³

et al. 2013

Italian Journal of Zoology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Scops Owl Otus scops (L., 1758) is a species of European concern, which suffered a noticeable decrease in distribution in the last decades, and changes in agricultural practices have been proposed as a major threat for this owl. We studied the habitat preference of the Scops Owl by assessing the habitat occupancy of 401 territories distributed in a large area in northwest Italy, with a special focus on 98 territories located in a high-density area (Monferrato). Habitat characteristics were analyzed with maximum entropy (MAXENT) models that included both vegetational (16 land use categories) and physical features estimated from a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) (altitude, slope, hillshade). In the Monferrato area, a comparison of 2009 landcover was also made with year 1954/55 characteristics obtained from aerial photographs. In the full northwest Italy area, the Scops Owl preferred areas located at middle altitude with intermediate slope. The preferred habitats included riparian areas and pasture-grassland, while woodlands and zones with Robinia pseudoacacia shrublands were avoided. In the Monferrato area, Scops Owl occupancy occurred in sites where the landuse (croplands/vineyard mosaic) had changed little since the mid-1950s. Our study suggests that conservation activity should focus on interventions halting riparian zone transformation and subsidies promoting agricultural practices favouring pastures and grassland.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Habitat selection in a changing environment: the relationship between habitat alteration and Scops Owl (Aves: Strigidae) territory occupancy

Treggiari¹,

Gagliardone²,

Pellegrino³

et al. 2013

Italian Journal of Zoology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The main habitat of individual species was classified according to BirdLife International [34] as farmland versus non-farmland or as aquatic versus non-aquatic, because farmland and non-aquatic species have declined more than species from other habitats [43][44][45][46][47]. Because species at different trophic levels may differ in response to climate change, diet was also factored out in the analyses.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate warming, ecological mismatch at arrival and population decline in migratory birds

et al. 2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate is changing at a fast pace, causing widespread, profound consequences for living organisms. Failure to adjust the timing of life-cycle events to climate may jeopardize populations by causing ecological mismatches to the life cycle of other species and abiotic factors. Population declines of some migratory birds breeding in Europe have been suggested to depend on their inability to adjust migration phenology so as to keep track of advancement of spring events at their breeding grounds. In fact, several migrants have advanced their spring arrival date, but whether such advancement has been sufficient to compensate for temporal shift in spring phenophases or, conversely, birds have become ecologically mismatched, is still an unanswered question, with very few exceptions. We used a novel approach based on accumulated winter and spring temperatures (degree-days) as a proxy for timing of spring biological events to test if the progress of spring at arrival to the breeding areas by 117 European migratory bird species has changed over the past five decades. Migrants, and particularly those wintering in sub-Saharan Africa, now arrive at higher degree-days and may have therefore accumulated a 'thermal delay', thus possibly becoming increasingly mismatched to spring phenology. Species with greater 'thermal delay' have shown larger population decline, and this evidence was not confounded by concomitant ecological factors or by phylogenetic effects. These findings provide general support to the largely untested hypotheses that migratory birds are becoming ecologically mismatched and that failure to respond to climate change can have severe negative impacts on their populations. The novel approach we adopted can be extended to the analysis of ecological consequences of phenological response to climate change by other taxa.

show abstract

“…Among the limited number of wild species able to persist in agroecosystems, birds are particularly important, for example in biological control of agricultural pests [4,5] or using birds as bioindicators of agricultural sustainability [6]. Bird presence in agroecosystems depends on the type of crop and its structural heterogeneity (e.g., a grassland with low vertical stratification vs trees with high vertical stratification), as well as the type of agricultural management and landscape composition [7][8][9]. For example, Verhulst et al [10] found that intensive conventional management of vineyards (high input of external agrochemicals) significantly decreased bird richness, compared with an abandoned vineyard.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural landscapes as habitat for birds in central Chile

Muñoz‐Sáez

Perez‐Quezada

Estades

2017

Rev. Chil. de Hist. Nat.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Understanding the role of agroecosystems as habitat for wildlife is crucial for long-term conservation planning, as different crop stratification and landscape elements can influence bird communities, which are also affected by seasonality. The goal of our study was to determine how agricultural landscapes varying in land cover characteristics affect bird richness and abundance. Bird surveys were conducted at 110 locations within agricultural landscapes in central Chile. The surveyed areas were characterized by land cover at two scales (50 and 500 m radii) through direct observation and photo-interpretation, during winter and spring seasons. Generalized Linear Mixed Models were used to evaluate the effects of different agricultural land covers on bird species and communities. Results: Our results show that birds were more abundant during winter, in particular for insectivorous and granivorous birds, and that bird species richness was significantly increased due to cover provided by hedgerows at the plot scale. Conclusions: We found that abundance of some bird species in agroecosystems in central Chile was higher in winter than in spring, and that overall bird richness was favored by structural diversity including non-crop structures such as hedgerows, which thus may be relevant for improving bird conservation management in temperate agroecosystems. Our results suggest that native vegetation proximity and area may affect seasonal changes in bird communities at larger scales, relationships which warrant further study.

show abstract

Changes in local species richness of farmland birds in relation to land-use changes and landscape structure

Cited by 109 publications

References 41 publications

Habitat selection in a changing environment: the relationship between habitat alteration and Scops Owl (Aves: Strigidae) territory occupancy

Habitat selection in a changing environment: the relationship between habitat alteration and Scops Owl (Aves: Strigidae) territory occupancy

Climate warming, ecological mismatch at arrival and population decline in migratory birds

Agricultural landscapes as habitat for birds in central Chile

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About