Reduced biodiversity in modernized villages: A conflict between sustainable development goals

Abstract

Despite large conservation efforts to halt the loss of farmland biodiversity in Europe, negative population trends are still observed, especially for common species. Old villages and human settlements are biodiversity hotspots and important breeding habitats for farmland birds, but recent requirements for energy saving measures and improved living comfort have changed their architecture and habitats. Consequently, modernization of villages may negatively affect bird diversity due to the loss of nesting and foraging sites. We investigated how the abundance and diversity of birds breeding in 104 Polish villages varied in relation to the degree of modernization as estimated by the proportion of new and renovated homesteads. Abundance of building‐nesting species, but not tree‐nesting species, declined by 50% across a gradient of old to highly modernized villages. The contribution of new versus renovated houses to the observed decline was similar. Synthesis and applications. Rural modernization may have a dramatic effect on abundance of birds nesting on buildings, thus may be an important and overlooked contributor to farmland bird population declines in Europe. Villages and rural properties fall outside of current conservation policy as they are neither protected areas nor agricultural lands (where agri‐environmental schemes can be applied). The observed conflict between sustainability goals such as increased building energy efficiency and biodiversity conservation suggests that sustainable rural development should better link modernization with conservation measures, for example, by constructing nesting sites when renovating and building new houses. The challenge is to design modern buildings that are both energy‐efficient and biodiversity‐friendly to generally improve quality of life for rural communities and to halt or reduce farmland bird declines in rural landscapes. Designers and architects can find inspiration from traditional architecture and add a variety of nest‐box types.

Population trends of common breeding birds in Germany 1990–2018

“…The abandonment of farmsteads in the post-Socialist period, and the state of the housing infrastructure in Eastern Germany in the 1990s (where many buildings had not been refurbished since pre-WWII-times, unlike in Western Germany) provided niches for species nesting in buildings that were lost when modernization set in (Schwarz and Flade 2000). Similar developments were seen in other former Eastern Bloc countries, such as Poland (Šálek et al 2018;Rosin et al 2020). In recent years, the decline of settlement species has leveled off, with evidence for a stable trend since ca.…”

“…1. habitat preference is a strong driver of population trends, with continuing declines in farmland and especially ground-nesting birds (Heldbjerg et al 2018;Traba and Morales 2019) and settlement-associated species (Rosin et al 2020), but stable trends or increases in forest and wetland species (Gregory et al 2019) 2. populations of insectivorous species have generally declined (Bowler et al 2019), following dramatic declines in insect abundance and biomass over the past decades (Hallmann et al 2017;Seibold et al 2019) 3. long-distance migrants wintering in sub-Saharan Africa continue to decline stronger than short-distance migrants or resident bird species (Sanderson et al 2006;Vickery et al 2014) 4. species with narrow habitat and dietary niches decline;…”

Does Traditional Feeding of Outdoor Guard Dogs Provide a Food Resource for Wild Mammals and Birds?

“…Changes in the pattern of dog feeding are probably one further example of how human-generated food waste has affected bird numbers and behaviour [ 15 ], although it is probably only important at a local scale. On the other hand, taking account of global changes to the structure of villages, for example rather less associated with traditional farming but rather more as a dormitory settlement for city workers [ 3 , 5 , 14 , 43 ], our results may suggest a more general, even global, picture.…”

“…Birds in farmland are declining across Europe, and one of the main reasons is decreasing food resources resulting from the intensification of agriculture [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. However, in Central Europe, the population size of birds in farmland is generally higher due to less-intensive agriculture [ 3 , 4 ], but also from the presence of refugia for many species in agricultural holdings, both in the breeding season [ 5 ], and throughout the year [ 6 ]. To date, research has focused on the roles of plant food sources; weeds on the outskirts of the village, and the remains of grain provided for poultry have been stressed [ 7 ].…”

Smart Sustainable Cities of the New Millennium: Towards Design for Nature

“…Some researchers have identified conflicts intrinsic to SDGs when it comes for instance to building efficiency (goals 9 and 11) and biodiversity conservation targets (goal 15). For example, in a study case investigating 104 villages in Poland, the abundance of building-nesting birds declined at about 50% due to building modernization and renovation [196]. The Polish example suggests that to mitigate this alarming and underestimated phenomenon, designers should build innovative and birdfriendly houses taking inspiration from traditional architecture.…”