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Inter-specific association and habitat use in a farmland passerine assemblage

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Ecological Research

Abstract

We studied the pattern of inter-specific association of breeding territories in a passerine assemblage of dry cereal farmland in central Spain and evaluated the role of the presence of heterospecifics in the habitat use patterns exhibited by different species. Bird territories showed a non-random inter-specific spatial aggregation pattern. We studied territory abundance variation in the three more abundant species: the corn bunting, the crested lark, and the fan-tailed warbler. Crested lark and fan-tailed warbler territories were more abundant in plots where corn bunting territories were present and vice versa, while their respective abundances did not vary with the breeding presence of the other species. We used landscape and agricultural management variables to analyze the relationships between habitat and each species’ breeding territories by means of classification trees. While the corn bunting showed a marked pattern of nesting habitat use, the crested lark and the fan-tailed warbler exhibited a much more generalist one. Corn Bunting presence was affected negatively by intensification-related variables, such as field size and percent cover of cereal crops. Similarly, the presence of crested larks was negatively related to high yielding areas. However, when the presence of hetero-specific territories was considered, the presence of corn bunting territories was the most important variable explaining the occurrence of breeding fan-tailed warblers, and the second most important in the case of the crested lark. These results suggest that inter-specific attraction could play a role in the formation of farmland bird assemblages, while adding further evidence for the detrimental effect of agricultural intensification at the community level.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to all the farmers that collaborated with us. Thanks are due to P. Machín and P. Martínez-Alonso for their help with fieldwork. J. Seoane, J. Forsman, J.T. Seppänen and two anonymous referees made useful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Financial support was provided by AGRIPOPES project (ESF Euro-diversity program), the Spanish Ministry of Science (CGL2006-26145-E/BOS) and the REMEDINAL 2 network of the CAM (S-2009/AMB/1783).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Terrestrial Ecology Group (TEG), Department of Ecology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, c/Darwin, 2 (Edificio de Biología), 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Manuel B. Morales, Irene Guerrero & Juan J. Oñate

  2. Department of Ecology, Instituto Cantábrico de Biodiversidad, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

    Leandro Meléndez

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  1. Manuel B. Morales
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Correspondence to Manuel B. Morales.

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Morales, M.B., Guerrero, I., Oñate, J.J. et al. Inter-specific association and habitat use in a farmland passerine assemblage. Ecol Res 27, 691–700 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-012-0946-4

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