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The relationship of bird diversity to crop and non-crop heterogeneity in agricultural landscapes

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Abstract

Context

Habitat heterogeneity is often assumed to benefit farmland biodiversity. Increasing heterogeneity of non-crop habitats is often too costly in terms of agricultural production. It has been suggested that increased crop heterogeneity could mitigate the negative effects of intensification on biodiversity while still maintaining high production levels.

Objectives

We investigated if habitat-specific species pools of two groups of farmland birds, field-nesting and non-crop-nesting species, were related to landscape-level heterogeneity of crop and non-crop cover. We analysed total number of species (gamma diversity) and average local species richness (alpha diversity) in landscapes and related these two biodiversity measures to four components of landscape heterogeneity (compositional and configurational heterogeneity of crop and non-crop cover).

Methods

We selected 30 farmland landscapes (each 25 km2) in Sweden that largely broke up correlated relationships between crop and non-crop heterogeneity and between compositional and configurational heterogeneity. Estimates of species richness (alpha and gamma diversity) were calculated with bird survey data from specific habitats within landscapes (farmsteads and arable fields) and then related to measures of landscape heterogeneity.

Results

No measure of landscape species richness was associated with landscape-scale crop cover heterogeneities. However, gamma diversity of both bird groups was negatively related to the compositional and configurational heterogeneity of non-crop land-use in the landscapes, respectively.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that: (i) crop heterogeneities are not related to habitat-specific richness of farmland birds, (ii) heterogeneity effects of habitat complementarity in general are weak and (iii) relationships between diversity and heterogeneity in landscapes are dependent on the biodiversity measure used.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to the many fieldworkers, farmers and landowners who made this study possible. Comments from two reviewers greatly improved this manuscript. This project was financed by FORMAS (Grant 215-2007-518 to TP and Grant 215 – 2010 – 612 to SE) and Carl Tryggers´ Stiftelse (Grant CTS 10:79 to SE).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    Matthew Hiron, Sönke Eggers, Åsa Berggren, Jonas Josefsson & Tomas Pärt

  2. Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    Åke Berg

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  1. Matthew Hiron
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  2. Åke Berg
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  3. Sönke Eggers
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Correspondence to Matthew Hiron.

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Hiron, M., Berg, Å., Eggers, S. et al. The relationship of bird diversity to crop and non-crop heterogeneity in agricultural landscapes. Landscape Ecol 30, 2001–2013 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-015-0226-0

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