Cropland patchiness strongest agricultural predictor of bird diversity for multiple guilds in landscapes of Ontario, Canada

Frei, Barbara; Bennett, Elena M.; Kerr, Jeremy T.

doi:10.1007/s10113-018-1343-5

Cited by 10 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Wild bird populations have continued to decline in agricultural landscapes due to intensified production (Geiger et al 2010, Jeliazkov et al 2016, Frei et al 2018a, so identifying in what systems and landscapes various agricultural diversification strategies are most effective for which species is crucial to inform agricultural policy aimed at conservation. Across two broad regions and unique biomes, we found crop-livestock systems promoted a greater richness and density of native bird species compared to crop-only systems and found no evidence for negative impacts of nonnative birds on native birds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly diversified crop–livestock farming systems reshape wild bird communities

Smith

Kennedy

Owen

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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Agricultural intensification is a leading threat to bird conservation. Highly diversified farming systems that integrate livestock and crop production might promote a diversity of habitats useful to native birds foraging across otherwise‐simplified landscapes. At the same time, these features might be attractive to nonnative birds linked to a broad range of disservices to both crop and livestock production. We evaluated the influence of crop–livestock integration on wild bird richness and density along a north‐south transect spanning the U.S. West Coast. We surveyed birds on 52 farms that grew primarily mixed vegetables and fruits alone or integrated livestock into production. Crop–livestock systems harbored higher native bird density and richness relative to crop‐only farms, a benefit more pronounced on farms embedded in nonnatural landscapes. Crop–livestock systems bolstered native insectivores linked to the suppression of agricultural pest insects but did not bolster native granivores that may be more likely to damage crops. Crop–livestock systems also significantly increased the density of nonnative birds, primarily European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) and House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) that may compete with native birds for resources. Models supported a small, positive correlation between nonnative density and overall native bird density as well as between nonnative density and native granivore density. Relative to crop‐only farms, on average, crop–livestock systems exhibited 1.5 times higher patch richness, 2.4 times higher density of farm structures, 7.3 times smaller field sizes, 2.4 times greater integration of woody crops, and 5.3 times greater integration of pasture/hay habitat on farm. Wild birds may have responded to this habitat diversity and/or associated food resources. Individual farm factors had significantly lower predictive power than farming system alone (change in C statistic information criterion (ΔCIC) = 80.2), suggesting crop–livestock systems may impact wild birds through a suite of factors that change with system conversion. Collectively, our findings suggest that farms that integrate livestock and crop production can attract robust native bird communities, especially within landscapes devoted to intensified food production. However, additional work is needed to demonstrate persistent farm bird communities through time, ecophysiological benefits to birds foraging on these farms, and net effects of both native and nonnative wild birds in agroecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly diversified crop–livestock farming systems reshape wild bird communities

Smith

Kennedy

Owen

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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“…Our results show that, even if grassland birds rarely nest within agricultural covers (e.g. corn, soy), they will benefit when agriculture takes its place within a forested ecosystem (Sekercioğlu et al 2007;Frei et al 2018;Wilson et al 2020), likely because of the transformation to a more open landscape and a possible increase in food availability. Cropland may functionally mimic open habitat especially when native grassland is rare, by providing complementary habitat and supplemental resources for foraging grassland birds (Dunning et al 1992;Da Silva et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…tilling, pesticide usage, timing of cutting, etc.) because they are known to affect bird diversity and biodiversity in general (Frei et al 2018;Martin et al 2020). In our models we assumed that more agriculture, particularly cropland, leads to higher intensity practices and chemical inputs because, globally, agriculture productivity has been increasing and more agriculture requires higher intensity practices and chemical inputs to achieve higher productivity (Tilman 1999;Tuninetti et al 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perennial forages included pasture and hay (Statistics Canada, 2011). Because native grassland was uncommon in our study region, we combined grassland with perennial forages, as perennial forages functionally mimic grassland habitat (Santana et al 2017;Frei et al 2018).…”

Section: Landscape Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Birds that have similar habitat requirements likely respond in similar ways to landscape changes resulting from agriculture. Some agriculture covers can mimic native grassland habitat, which grassland birds benefit from, especially in landscapes lacking native grasslands (Santana et al 2017;Frei et al 2018). On the other hand, field edges and hedgerows (i.e., shrubby field margins) can provide nesting and roosting habitat and connectivity among habitat patches for open-country shrub-forest edge birds (Benton et al 2003;Fonderflick et al 2013;Wilson et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Direct and Indirect Effects of Agricultural Land Cover on Bird Species Richness

Vala¹

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Agriculture is one of the largest threats to global biodiversity including to birds. But we know little about whether the effects of agriculture on birds are mainly direct through farming operations, or indirect through effects on natural habitats. We sampled birds at 127 sites in eastern Ontario Canada. We used structural equation modelling (SEM) to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of agriculture on species richness of three bird guilds: forest birds, shrubedge birds, and grassland birds. We found that forest bird richness was driven by the negative indirect effect of cropland via habitat loss. Shrub-edge and grassland bird richness increased with the amount of agriculture, despite negative indirect effects. Management efforts for bird diversity in agricultural landscapes should focus on preserving grassland and forest habitat including forest edges, while managing agricultural land, for instance, by selecting perennial crops and low impact agricultural activities. from both of you. I would like to thank Julia Put from Carleton University and Christine Eberl, Dr. Gregory Mitchell, and Dr. Scott Wilson at the National Wildlife Research Center for their assistance preparing for and conducting field work. Thanks also to Kevin Hannah at Environment and Climate Change Canada for providing field equipment and funding for an expert to identify the bird species from the survey data. I would also like to thank Lindsay Daly, Adrianne Hajdasz, and Joe Gabriel from the Geomatics and Landscape Ecology Lab (GLEL) for sharing their methods for corridor connectivity. This project would not have been possible without the funding and support provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada.

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The influence of landscape characteristics on breeding bird dark diversity

et al. 2023

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The exploration of factors and processes affecting biodiversity loss is central to nature management and wildlife conservation, but only recently has knowledge about the absence of species been recognized as a valuable asset to understand the current biodiversity crisis. In this paper, we explore the dark diversity (species that belong to a site-specific species pool but that are not locally present) of breeding birds in Denmark assessed through species co-occurrence patterns. We apply a nation-wide atlas survey of breeding birds (with a 5 × 5 km resolution), to investigate how landscape characteristics may influence avian diversity, and whether threatened and near threatened species are more likely to occur in dark diversity than least concern (LC) species. On average, the dark diversity constituted 41% of all species belonging to the site-specific species pools and threatened and near-threatened species had a higher probability of belonging to the dark diversity than least concern species. Habitat heterogeneity was negatively related to dark diversity and the proportional cover of intensive agriculture positively related, implying that homogeneous landscapes dominated by agricultural interests led to more absent avian species. Finally, we found significant effects of human disturbance and distance to the coast, indicating that more breeding bird species were missing when human disturbance was high and in near-coastal areas. Our study provides the first attempt to investigate dark diversity among birds and highlights how important landscape characteristics may shape breeding bird diversity and reveal areas of considerable species impoverishment.

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Cropland patchiness strongest agricultural predictor of bird diversity for multiple guilds in landscapes of Ontario, Canada

Cited by 10 publications

References 57 publications

Highly diversified crop–livestock farming systems reshape wild bird communities

Highly diversified crop–livestock farming systems reshape wild bird communities

Direct and Indirect Effects of Agricultural Land Cover on Bird Species Richness

The influence of landscape characteristics on breeding bird dark diversity

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