Seeking the least urbanized landscape: white stork nest abundance variation in a Mediterranean capital city

White Storks nest at high densities near landfills changing stork nesting distributions in the last four decades in Central Spain

“…In accord with previous studies, we found this species preferentially breeds in areas with pastures and dehesas, near water bodies and in rural areas while avoiding agricultural fields, arable lands, forests, and urban areas (Alonso et al 1991, Carrascal et al 1993, Zurell et al 2018, Hmamouchi et al 2020a). However, these preferences changed over the last 4 decades as shown through our analysis of new and abandoned nesting sites.…”

“…We selected the following environmental variables from Corine Land Cover (CLC, https://centrodedescargas.cnig.es) known to affect the distribution of breeding White Stork populations (Carrascal et al 1993, Radović et al 2015, Orłowski et al 2019, Hmamouchi et al 2020a, Bialas et al 2021): percentage of land covered by arable lands (CLC class 21), percentage of land covered by other agricultural areas (CLC class 22 and 24, except 244), percentage of land covered by forestry areas (CLC class 31 and 32, except 321), percentage of land covered by pastures, meadows, and dehesas (i.e. Agroforestry areas based on pastures with some trees and human management with livestock in the Mediterranean area) (CLC classes 231, 321, and 244), distance to the nearest water body, and degree of urbanization.…”

“…We selected the following environmental variables from Corine Land Cover (CLC, https://centrodedescargas.cnig.es) known to affect the distribution of breeding White Stork popu-lations (Carrascal et al 1993, Radović et al 2015, Orłowski et al 2019, Hmamouchi et al 2020a, Bialas et al 2021 we used distance to the nearest water body and degree of urbanization instead of percentage of water bodies (CLC classes 41 and 51) or percentage of highly altered urban areas (CLC class 1)…”

“…In the degree of urbanization (E), the whiskers show the 95% CI and the asterisk (*) designates the groups with significant differences. fields, arable lands, forests, and urban areas (Alonso et al 1991, Carrascal et al 1993, Zurell et al 2018, Hmamouchi et al 2020a). However, these preferences changed over the last 4 decades as shown through our analysis of new and abandoned nesting sites.…”

“…This is particularly important in the case of species with a marked nest-site fidelity (Barbraud et al 1999, Vergara et al 2006) and philopatry (Del Hoyo et al 2014), such as the White Stork, where the previous distribution is a determinant factor in the future expansion of the species. Previous studies focused on the effects of landfills on White Stork distribution often overlooked the potential effects of historical distribution due to the lack of available data before the use of the new feeding resources began (Djerdali et al 2016b, Bialas et al 2020, Hmamouchi et al 2020a,b).…”