Impacts of agricultural intensification on bird communities: New insights from a multi-level and multi-facet approach of biodiversity

Jeliazkov, Aliénor; Mimet, Anne; Chargé, Rémi; Jiguet, Frédéric; Devictor, Vincent; Chiron, François

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2015.09.017

Cited by 78 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…, Jeliazkov et al. , Frei et al. ), 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.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly diversified crop–livestock farming systems reshape wild bird communities

Smith

Kennedy

Owen

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly diversified crop–livestock farming systems reshape wild bird communities

Smith

Kennedy

Owen

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…NPP remaining provides insights into the intensity of productivity appropriation that is not captured by land‐use variables and appears to have a significant impact on bird communities. The independent importance of the land‐use composition and intensity for bird communities has been previously observed in particular habitats, such as farmlands, for both specialization and trophic levels (Jeliazkov et al., ), or woodlands, for specialization (Drapeau et al., ). Our study generalizes these findings to three different habitats plus the landscape scale (the All‐habitats model) and to four community indices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Relative importance of the land‐use composition and intensity for the bird community composition in anthropogenic landscapes

Pellissier

Mimet

Fontaine

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Humans are changing the biosphere by exerting pressure on land via different land uses with variable intensities. Quantifying the relative importance of the land‐use composition and intensity for communities may provide valuable insights for understanding community dynamics in human‐dominated landscapes. Here, we evaluate the relative importance of the land‐use composition versus land‐use intensity on the bird community structure in the highly human‐dominated region surrounding Paris, France. The land‐use composition was calculated from a land cover map, whereas the land‐use intensity (reverse intensity) was represented by the primary productivity remaining after human appropriation (NPP remaining), which was estimated using remote sensing imagery. We used variance partitioning to evaluate the relative importance of the land‐use composition versus intensity for explaining bird community species richness, total abundance, trophic levels, and habitat specialization in urban, farmland, and woodland habitats. The land‐use composition and intensity affected specialization and richness more than trophic levels and abundance. The importance of the land‐use intensity was slightly higher than that of the composition for richness, specialization, and trophic levels in farmland and urban areas, while the land‐use composition was a stronger predictor of abundance. The intensity contributed more to the community indices in anthropogenic habitats (farmland and urban areas) than to those in woodlands. Richness, trophic levels, and specialization in woodlands tended to increase with the NPP remaining value. The heterogeneity of land uses and intensity levels in the landscape consistently promoted species richness but reduced habitat specialization and trophic levels. This study demonstrates the complementarity of NPP remaining to the land‐use composition for understanding community structure in anthropogenic landscapes. Our results show, for the first time, that the productivity remaining after human appropriation is a determinant driver of animal community patterns, independent of the type of land use.

show abstract

“…Indeed, although grassland specialist species richness decreased with increasing crop production, we observed an increase of arable specialist species richness along this gradient. Nevertheless, given the clarity of results reported in numerous smaller-scale studies (Chiron et al, 2014;Filippi-Codaccioni et al, 2010a;Jeliazkov et al, 2016;Newton 2004), and in spite of the positive relationship we observed between crop production and arable specialist species richness, we still believe arable specialist species to be vulnerable to intensive management practices. We suggest that this vulnerability could not be detected in our studies because we did not try to distinguish between the impacts of the extent of arable habitat and that of intensive management practices.…”

Section: Crop Production and The Specialization Of Bird Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…Landscape simplification, that is to say, the increase of the extent of cropland and the size of fields, is generally considered to have a positive impact on farmland specialists, and a negative impact on all other species (Chiron et al, 2014;FilippiCodaccioni et al, 2010a;Jeliazkov et al, 2016). Recently, Teillard et al (2014) have split the farmland specialist species into three groups according to their within-farmland specialization, making it possible to show that specialist species benefit from a higher extent of their habitat within farmland.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%