Breeding in an agricultural landscape: conservation actions increase nest survival in a ground- nesting bird
ÁDÁM KIS S * 1 , 2 ,ZSO L T VÉGVÁRI 3 , 4,VOJT ĚCH KUBELKA5,ÁKO S MONOKI 2 I STVÁN KAP OCSI 2 ,S ZIL V IA GŐ RI 2 and TAMÁS S ZÉKELY 1 , 6
Abstract Agricultural intensification has affected wildlife across Europe, triggering steep declines and regional extinc- tions of farmland birds. Effective conservation activities are essential for the preservation of biodiversity in an agricul- tural landscape, but current efforts have not succeeded in halting these declines. Here we investigate a ground-nesting shorebird, the collared pratincole Glareola pratincola, which has shifted its habitat use in Central Europe over the last 20 years from alkaline grasslands to intensively managed agri- cultural fields.We showthat nesting successwas different be- tween three agricultural habitat types, with the highest nesting success in fallow lands and the lowest in row crops. Nesting success was also associated with the timing of breeding and breeding density, as nests produced early in the breeding sea- son and those in high-breeding-density areas hatched more successfully than those produced later in the season and at low density. We implemented direct conservation measures including marking nests and negotiating with farmers to avoid cultivating the field between nest markers, controlling nest predators and, most recently, creating suitable nesting sites and foraging areas for pratincoles. As a result of these conservation actions, nest survival increased from 11.2%to 83.5% and the size of the breeding population increased from 13 to 56 pairs during 2012–2021. Thus, we show that agricultural landscapes can continue to provide suitable habitats, and targeted conservation actions have the po- tential to reverse the declines of farmland species.
Keywords Agricultural land use, conservation action, farmland birds, Glareola pratincola, nest survival, predator control, shorebirds, waders
The supplementary material for this article is available at
doi.org/10.1017/S0030605323000911
*Corresponding author,
glareola.pratincola@
gmail.com 1HUN-REN DE-Reproductive Strategies Research Group, University of
Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary 2Hortobágy National Park Directorate, Debrecen, Hungary 3HU-REN Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Aquatic Ecology,
Budapest, Hungary 4Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut, Müncheberg, Germany 5Department of Zoology and Centre for Polar Ecology, Faculty of Science,
University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic 6Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath, Bath, UK
Received 30 November 2022. Revision requested 2 February 2023. Accepted 3 July 2023. First published online 29 November 2023.
Introduction N
atural habitats are disappearing or degrading at global scales and at an unprecedented rate as a result of the
combined effects of current climatic processes and changes in land use during the Anthropocene (Fahrig, 1997; Balmer &Erhardt, 2000; Davidson, 2014;Hu et al., 2017). One of the main driving factors is the expansion of intensive forms of agricultural land use, which has led to the reduction and sometimes even complete disappearance of various native habitats across Europe (O’Connor & Shrubb, 1986; Potter, 1997). These declines are especially severe amongst grass- land breeding animals that are considered to be sensitive to environmental changes, as evidenced by recent steep de- clines of steppe species (Fuller, 2000; Massa & La Mantia, 2010; Ward et al., 2010; Guerrero et al., 2012). As a conse- quence of the loss of grassland habitats, birds that tradition- ally bred in open natural habitats now increasingly breed on arable land and in agricultural areas (Galbraith, 1987; Böhning-Gaese & Bauer, 1996; Brady & Flather, 1998). However, agricultural landscapes can lead to mal-assess-
ment in habitat choice as they appear suitable to prospective breeders but the conditions they offer often result in inferior reproductive success (Székely, 1992), and thus they may be ecological traps (Schlaepfer et al., 2002; Robertson &Hutto, 2006; Pärt et al., 2007; Gilroy et al., 2011; Hollander et al., 2017). Additionally, the intensification of agricultural prac- tices can affect the nesting success of ground-breeding birds in numerous ways, including direct loss of nests, chicks and/ or adults through mowing, cultivation by agricultural ma- chinery, use of pesticides, irrigation and/or drainage (Berg et al., 1992; Wilson et al., 2005; Kentie et al., 2013). There are numerous examples of the negative affects of agriculture on ground-breeding birds, including local extinctions of flagship species such as the great bustard Otis tarda and grey partridge Perdix perdix (Donald et al., 2001; Arroyo, et al., 2002; De Leo et al., 2004; Alonso & Palacín, 2010; Potts, 2012; Gooch et al., 2015). These pressures on farmland birds have intensified as a result of global climate change, which has amplified predation rates in human-modified habitats. Specifically, environmental changes have boosted the populations of mesopredators, which have further reduced the nest or offspring survival rates of ground- breeding birds (Roodbergen et al., 2012; Kentie et al., 2015; Kubelka et al., 2018; Brzeziński et al., 2020). To mitigate
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2024, 58(2), 240–249 © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323000911
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