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Factors affecting changes in grey partridge population dynamics in a French arable farmland over an eleven-year period

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Abstract

The grey partridge Perdix perdix is of conservation concern owing to habitat heterogeneity losses and the negative impact of other environmental factors, e.g., pesticide use, predators, weather or shooting pressure, which are known to be associated with population decline. By an 11-year-period study in an intensively cultivated farmland located in the Paris basin, we aimed to relate the changes in grey partridge population dynamics with the changes in agriculture, monthly rainfall and shooting pressure. Summer drought occurred at the middle time of the study period. At the start of our study, a new cultivation, winter-wheat broadcast in maize-stubble fields, was introduced that probably improved the habitat. But in the next years, there was a loss in habitat diversity due to the disappearance of pastures dedicated to sheep rearing, removal of non-cropped areas and field boundaries and increase in the mean field size. Shooting was annually adjusted to what the owner believed to be a wise harvest. In post-breeding coveys, both percentages of hens with young among total hens and young-to-successful hens ratios first increased and then decreased. The mean brood size was rather weak during the dryness incident. The number of pairs in a more heterogeneous sector was always greater than in a less one. In both sectors, spring abundance first increased and then decreased. In the second half of the study period, the shooting quotas were reduced, especially when the mean brood size fell down. Low hatching rates of clutches and low chick survival rates explain the population decline, as the results are convincing. To stop the population decline in intensive arable farmland, good breeding success is needed. This can be provided by favourable habitats for hens to nest and for chicks to feed.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support for this study was provided by the National Institute of Agronomic Research (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique). We are grateful to Mr Henri de Boisgelin and to the farmers for permitting us to work in their properties and to sex and age the birds during autumn counts and shooting. We are very grateful to the volunteers who helped us to carry out the spring censuses. Finally, we are indebted to reviewers for very constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Comportement et Ecologie de la Faune Sauvage, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Boîte Postale 52627, 31326, Castanet-Tolosan cedex, France

    Dominique Pépin & Jean-Marc Angibault

  2. Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage (ONCFS), 85 bis Avenue de Wagram, Boîte Postale 236, 75822, Paris cedex, France

    Marcel Birkan

Authors
  1. Dominique Pépin
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  2. Marcel Birkan
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  3. Jean-Marc Angibault
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Correspondence to Dominique Pépin.

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Communicated by W. Lutz

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Pépin, D., Birkan, M. & Angibault, JM. Factors affecting changes in grey partridge population dynamics in a French arable farmland over an eleven-year period. Eur J Wildl Res 54, 179–187 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-007-0125-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-007-0125-z

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