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Demographic, ecological, and life-history traits associated with bird population response to landscape fragmentation in Europe

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Abstract

Context

Human land-use transformation has fragmented natural landscapes around the world, with fragmentation currently being considered a global threat to biodiversity conservation. Landscape fragmentation, however, does not affect all species similarly, suggesting that some species characteristics may render species more sensitive to fragmentation than others.

Objectives

The aim of this study was to test whether demographic, ecological, and life-history traits are associated with vulnerability to landscape fragmentation in European breeding bird species.

Methods

Effective mesh size per area unit was used as an index of landscape fragmentation. Vulnerability to fragmentation for every bird species was estimated as population response to fragmentation per se (controlling for habitat loss due to fragmenting elements), with more vulnerable species showing a negative relationship between population density and fragmentation among countries, and less vulnerable species showing no (or even a positive) relationship. Comparative analyses controlled for similarity among species due to common phylogenetic descent.

Results

Response to fragmentation was more often positive than negative, and it was positively related to population size, migration distance, and body mass, and negatively related to age at first reproduction. The relationship between response to fragmentation and population size did not allow us to assess whether being less abundant was the cause or the consequence of being vulnerable to fragmentation. Response to fragmentation was not significantly related to other demographic, ecological, and life-history characteristics.

Conclusions

These results suggest that small-sized resident bird species with delayed maturity are particularly vulnerable to landscape fragmentation. Future conservation efforts should target these species.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Juan Soler for helping with statistical analysis. JJC was funded by the Spanish National Research Council (Grant EST001196) and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Grant CGL2013-48193-C3-3-P).

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  1. Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Calle José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    José Javier Cuervo

  2. Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 91405, Orsay Cedex, France

    Anders Pape Møller

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  1. José Javier Cuervo
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Correspondence to José Javier Cuervo.

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Cuervo, J.J., Møller, A.P. Demographic, ecological, and life-history traits associated with bird population response to landscape fragmentation in Europe. Landscape Ecol 35, 469–481 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-019-00959-9

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