Habitat management effects on Prealpine grassland bird communities

Abstract

Currently, land abandonment constitutes a serious threat for many species tied to semi-natural grasslands. In southern Europe, the conservation of many grassland bird communities largely depends on low-intensity mountain farming. In this study, we analysed the effects of the main farming practices promoting grassland maintenance, i.e. grazing and mowing, on species richness of a Prealpine grassland bird community and on the breeding densities of the two commonest grassland species, the skylark (Alauda arvensis Linnaeus, 1758) and the tree pipit (Anthus trivialis Linnaeus, 1758). The two study sites were located between 1100 and 2000 m above sea level in the Italian central Prealps. Grassland species richness was positively affected by grazing, and increased with increasing distance from the nearest woodland. Skylark density was positively influenced by mowing, grassland cover extent and distance from woodland, with the latter effect occurring only at a single study site. Finally, tree pipit density was positively affected by grazing. Our findings suggest that, in order to maintain open grasslands below the natural treeline and enhance the biodiversity of grassland bird communities, grazing should be preferred over mowing. Moreover, woodland edge effects may have a negative impact on mountain grassland bird communities. Advancing woodlands and abandonment of low-intensity farming and grazing practices may therefore constitute a serious threat for open-habitat specialist bird species of the Alpine region.

Determination of Fatty Acids Profile in Original Brown Cows Dairy Products and Relationship with Alpine Pasture Farming System

“…These agro-structural changes are linked to little or no use of mountain pastures or to their utilisation for mowing rather than for grazing. All this is responsible for the loss of open areas and forest re-growth, that lead to reduction of fauna and flora biodiversity as a result [2][3][4]. Furthermore, keeping the traditional alpine agro-pastoral practices is related to a greater appreciation by tourists and produce positive socio-economic implications, helping the environmental and economic sustainability which is one of the future challenges for the agri-food systems [5,6].…”

Behavioural responses to human disturbance in an alpine bird

“…Mountain areas are subject to a range of pressures, including climate change and alterations in land use, driving forces which are often linked to human activities, such as the abandonment of traditional pastoral practices (Probo et al 2014;Bazzi et al 2015;Jähnig et al 2018). Climate warming is likely to push ski developments to higher elevations where snow conditions are more reliable, thus increasing pressure on high-elevation species (Brambilla et al 2016).…”

Dynamic multi-species occupancy models reveal individualistic habitat preferences in a high-altitude grassland bird community

“…1). We also excluded plots that were lying adjacent to the wetlands too to avoid associated edge effects (Bazzi et al, 2015). Then we sequentially numbered all the remaining plots and randomly selected 19 of them using the ‘sample()’ function in R (R Development Core Team, 2013).…”