Changes in Song Thrush<i>Turdus philomelos</i>Density and Habitat Association in Apple Orchards During the Breeding Season

Brambilla, Mattia; Martino, Giuseppe; Pedrini, Paolo

doi:10.13157/arla.60.1.2012.73

Cited by 12 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…All four species are abundant or very abundant in the study area and, more generally, in the Alps; this makes unlikely that, in the core of the breeding season, the occurrence of unpaired or prospecting males could bias our occupancy estimates. The evidence for within-season movements is consistent with previous studies, undertaken at lower elevations, with other bird species, mainly in forests and farmlands [3][4][5][6]8,14,41 . Our results further suggest that within-season movements and/or dynamic distributions could be common among multi-brooded birds breeding in seasonal environments.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Furthermore, we observed these dynamics in four species with clearly different ecological requirements, supporting this suggestion. Similarly to previous studies [3][4][5][6]8,14,41 , the evidence we obtained for within-season movements is indirect, as we did not mark single individuals. For this reason, besides within-season movements, in this section we will also evaluate and discuss all possible alternative explanations for the observed changes in occupancy.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

“…The overall environmental conditions may also have improved throughout the season, allowing the settlement of more breeding pairs 41 . Robins and dunnocks selected warmer sites at the beginning of the season, suggesting that these areas provided environmental conditions that allow breeding early.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Within-season movements of Alpine songbird distributions are driven by fine-scale environmental characteristics

Ceresa

Brambilla

Monrós

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Information about distribution and habitat use of organisms is crucial for conservation. Bird distribution within the breeding season has been usually considered static, but this assumption has been questioned. Within-season movements may allow birds to track changes in habitat quality or to adjust site choice between subsequent breeding attempts. Such movements are especially likely in temperate mountains, given the substantial environmental heterogeneity and changes occurring during bird breeding season. We investigated the within-season movements of breeding songbirds in the European Alps in spring-summer 2018, using repeated point counts and dynamic occupancy models. For all the four species for which we obtained sufficient data, changes in occupancy during the season strongly indicated the occurrence of within-season movements. Species occupancy changed during the season according to fine-scale vegetation/land-cover types, while microclimate (mean temperature) affected initial occupancy in two species. The overall occupancy rate increased throughout the season, suggesting the settlement of new individuals coming from outside the area. A static distribution cannot be assumed during the breeding season for songbirds breeding in temperate mountains. This needs to be considered when planning monitoring and conservation of Alpine birds, as withinseason movements may affect the proportion of population/distribution interested by monitoring or conservation programs.Detailed information about the distribution and habitat use of organisms is essential for their conservation. Species distribution models are widely used to relate environmental and climatic variables to species occurrences, and the resulting relationships are used to predict species distributions in space and time 1 . This can provide useful information to assess the potential impact of environmental changes, identify priority areas for conservation, define ecological networks and design monitoring schemes 1,2 .Distribution models have been largely used to investigate the distribution of bird species at different scales. In spite of the generally high mobility of birds, studies have generally assumed a static distribution during the breeding season 1 . However, several studies now indicate that within-breeding season movements (hereafter 'within-season movements') may be common, at least in multi-brooded species breeding in seasonal environments 3-10 . These movements probably represent displacements to higher quality breeding sites, occurring from one to the subsequent brood, or after a reproduction failure 3,11 . Habitat quality may change throughout the season 12 , as well as the cues available to birds to select a suitable breeding site 13 ; in both cases, moving to more suitable areas would be an adaptive response. Within-season movements have been assessed in a broad variety of species with different reproductive behaviour and across many different scales (i.e. within study areas ranging from c. 1 up to c. 5000 km 2 5,7,8,14,15,23 , or even acros...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

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Within-season movements of Alpine songbird distributions are driven by fine-scale environmental characteristics

Ceresa

Brambilla

Monrós

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…While these results originate from only 10 transects and a single region in Switzerland, we are confident that the importance of natural structures and ground vegetation as well as the seasonal variability in habitat selection patterns can be generalized to at least vineyards from other regions [ 43 , 50 – 53 ] and potentially to other perennial crops such as orchards (e.g. [ 6 , 11 , 71 ]), if not even to other agroecosystems (e.g. [ 13 , 15 , 24 , 32 , 34 , 72 ]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Temporal and Spatial Scales Matter: Circannual Habitat Selection by Bird Communities in Vineyards

et al. 2017

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Vineyards are likely to be regionally important for wildlife, but we lack biodiversity studies in this agroecosystem which is undergoing a rapid management revolution. As vine cultivation is restricted to arid and warm climatic regions, biodiversity-friendly management would promote species typical of southern biomes. Vineyards are often intensively cultivated, mostly surrounded by few natural features and offering a fairly mineral appearance with little ground vegetation cover. Ground vegetation cover and composition may further strongly vary with respect to season, influencing patterns of habitat selection by ecological communities. We investigated season-specific bird-habitat associations to highlight the importance of semi-natural habitat features and vineyard ground vegetation cover throughout the year. Given that avian habitat selection varies according to taxa, guilds and spatial scale, we modelled bird-habitat associations in all months at two spatial scales using mixed effects regression models. At the landscape scale, birds were recorded along 10 1-km long transects in Southwestern Switzerland (February 2014 –January 2015). At the field scale, we compared the characteristics of visited and unvisited vineyard fields (hereafter called parcels). Bird abundance in vineyards tripled in winter compared to summer. Vineyards surrounded by a greater amount of hedges and small woods harboured higher bird abundance, species richness and diversity, especially during the winter season. Regarding ground vegetation, birds showed a season-specific habitat selection pattern, notably a marked preference for ground-vegetated parcels in winter and for intermediate vegetation cover in spring and summer. These season-specific preferences might be related to species-specific life histories: more insectivorous, ground-foraging species occur during the breeding season whereas granivores predominate in winter. These results highlight the importance of investigating habitat selection at different spatial scales and all along the annual cycle in order to draw practical, season-specific management recommendations for promoting avian biodiversity in farmland.

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“…The following settings, commonly adopted as default values, were used for model selection: threshold = 0.001, penalty = 2, degree of interactions = 1 (no interaction allowed among variables). Variable importance was evaluated on the basis of the evimp command (Milborrow 2011a;Brambilla et al 2013b;Jedlikowski et al 2014) which estimates importance according to three criteria, i.e. the number of model subsets generated by the pruning pass (variables included in more subsets are considered more important), the decrease in the residual sum-of-squares (RSS) rescaled to a percentage scale (largest one equal to 100), and the generalised cross validation (GCV) of the model, similarly rescaled to a percentage scale (largest one equal to 100) (Milborrow 2011a).…”

Section: Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of residual habitats and crop management for the conservation of birds breeding in intensive orchards

Brambilla

Assandri

Martino

et al. 2015

Ecological Research

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Intensive orchards are artificial habitats managed according to production criteria, but they may mimic open woodlands and harbour wild species. We investigated the effect of orchard features on the true abundance (estimated with occupancy models) of some bird species widespread in orchards. Our study was carried out in Val di Non (Trento province, Italy) where apple cultivation is the most widespread and intensive. We counted blackcaps Sylvia atricapilla, chaffinches Fringilla coelebs, and greenfinches Carduelis chloris three times at 44 transects 300-m long. At each transect, we estimated the number of territories/pairs and recorded variables describing the cover of the habitats and management factors. Blackcap abundance was positively affected by the cover of shrubland and broadleaved woodland and by a low cover of coniferous forests. Chaffinch abundance was driven by a negative impact of anti-hail nets and secondarily by bare ground and urbanized areas, with chaffinches more abundant in areas with grassland ground cover and 5-10 % cover of urban habitats. Greenfinch abundance increased with wetland cover, cover of other natural/semi-natural habitats and tree height and decreased with grassland cover. Both the availability of natural and semi-natural vegetation and the orchard traits determined by management can significantly affect the abundance of common species. The conservation of the remaining patches of woodland, shrubland, wetland (and other natural/semi-natural habitats) is essential for bird conservation. The already reported negative impact of anti-hail nets and the importance of the height of apple trees are confirmed; irrigation systems and bare ground may also be important factors.

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Changes in Song ThrushTurdus philomelosDensity and Habitat Association in Apple Orchards During the Breeding Season

Cited by 12 publications

References 22 publications

Within-season movements of Alpine songbird distributions are driven by fine-scale environmental characteristics

Within-season movements of Alpine songbird distributions are driven by fine-scale environmental characteristics

Temporal and Spatial Scales Matter: Circannual Habitat Selection by Bird Communities in Vineyards

The importance of residual habitats and crop management for the conservation of birds breeding in intensive orchards

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