Local habitat and landscape influence high predation of bird nests on afforested Mediterranean cropland
Identifiers
Permanent link (URI): http://hdl.handle.net/10017/38567DOI: 10.1016/j.actao.2014.05.001
ISSN: 1146-609X
Date
2014Funders
Ministerio de Ciencia y Educación
Comunidad de Madrid
Bibliographic citation
Acta Oecologica, 2014, v. 58, n. , p. 35-43
Keywords
Artificial nests
Farmland habitat
Land use types
Magpie abundance
Pine plantations
Project
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MICINN//CGL2010-18312/ES/RESTAURACION DE LA BIODIVERSIDAD Y LOS SERVICIOS ECOSISTEMICOS EN SISTEMAS AGRARIOS. UN ENFOQUE MULTI-ESCALA/
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/CAM//S2009%2FAMB-1783/ES/Restauración y conservación de los ecosistemas madrileños: respuesta frente al cambio global/
Fundación Internacional para la Restauración de Ecosistemas
Document type
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Version
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
© 2014 Elsevier
Access rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Abstract
Afforestation programs such as the one promoted by the EU Common Agrarian Policy have contributed to spread tree plantations on former cropland. Nevertheless these afforestations may cause severe damage to open habitat species, especially birds of high conservation value. We investigated predation of artificial bird nests at young tree plantations and at the open farmland habitat adjacent to the tree plantations in central Spain. Predation rates were very high at both tree plantations (95.6%) and open farmland habitat (94.2%) after two and three week exposure. Plantation edge/area ratio and development of the tree canopy decreased predation rates and plantation area and magpie (Pica pica) abundance increased predation rates within tree plantations, which were also affected by land use types around plantations. The area of nearby tree plantations (positive effect), distance to the tree plantation edge (negative effect), and habitat type (mainly attributable to the location of nests in vineyards) explained predation rates at open farmland habitat. We conclude that predation rates on artificial nests were particularly high and rapid at or nearby large plantations, with high numbers of magpies and low tree development, and located in homogenous landscapes dominated by herbaceous crops and pastures with no remnants of semi-natural woody vegetation. Landscape planning should not favour tree plantations as the ones studied here in Mediterranean agricultural areas that are highly valuable for ground-nesting bird species.
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local_sanchez_AO_2014.pdf | 858.9Kb |
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