Scale-dependent homogenization: Changes in breeding bird diversity in the Netherlands over a 25-year period

Changes in bird distribution in a Central European country between 1985–1989 and 2001–2003

“…Therefore, we suggest that these patterns were caused mainly by extending distribution of common species already breeding in the Czech Republic, and the colonization of the country by new species has only strenghtened this effect. In the case of forest birds, this result is in accordance with studies based on annual monitoring of populations of common species in the Czech Republic ) and other parts of Europe Van Turnhout et al 2007). It might be attributed to forest expansion, the alteration of forest age class composition towards older classes and/or by the impact of forest recovery after the reduction of imissions in the 1990s (Reif et al , 2008c.…”

“…We can only speculate about the switch from an extensively cultivated agricultural landscape providing a heterogenous mosaic of habitats to either highly intensive agriculture or the complete abandonment of arable land in the key areas for populations of these species (Konvička et al 2006(Konvička et al , 2008Ludwig et al 2009;see also Š ťastný et al 1996). The disappearance of these highly specialized species is consistent with Kerbiriou's et al (2009) findings on the spread of tolerant species with a broad ecological niche leading to biotic homogenization of bird communities in France (Devictor et al 2008) and the Netherlands (Van Turnhout et al 2007). The increasing occupancy of forest and wetland birds was found even if the species detected in only one mapping were excluded (although with lower significance).…”

“…Such an ''ecological-group'' approach has been used successfully for the examination of temporal changes in regional breeding bird distribution in several Western European countries (Gregory et al 2004;Julliard et al 2004;Lemoine et al 2007;Van Turnhout et al 2007;Bauer et al 2008). These studies have found prominent effects of various environmental changes on European birds such as the intensification of farming practices, urbanization and global climate change or habitat degradation on stop-over and wintering sites in the Mediterranean region and Sahel zone (Feranec et al 2000;Jongman 2002;Opdam and Wascher 2004;Moreno-Rueda and Pizarro 2008;Schaefer et al 2008).…”

The Homogocene: a research prospectus for the study of biotic homogenisation

“…ple, studies have reported a 1.3 % increase in fish faunal similarity in Canada (Taylor 2004), a 2.8 % increase in bird community similarity in the Netherlands (Van Turnhout et al 2007) and a 0.3 % increase in compositional similarity of the continental flora of Chile (Castro and Jaksic 2008). Whether small degrees of homogenisation are greater than expectations based on chance alone remains questionable in many instances.…”

No evident spatial genetic structuring in the rapidly declining Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa limosa in The Netherlands

“…However, with the increasing intensification over the last 50 years many bird species breeding on farmland are now declining (Stoate et al 2009;van Turnhout et al 2007). A good example of a bird species that waxed and waned in response to agricultural land use changes is the Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa limosa (Birdlife International 2009).…”