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Movements of birds of prey reveal the importance of tree lines, small woods and forest edges in agricultural landscapes

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Abstract

Context

Small woody features (SWF; tree lines and small woods) in agricultural landscapes provide a substitute for forest conditions for a wide range of species and a suitable edge habitat for ecotone species. The importance of SWF for biodiversity is usually inferred from presence or abundance data for small animals. Although large animals, due to their lower density are less likely to be attributed with SWF, they may depend on these areas to effectively utilize the agricultural landscape matrix.

Objectives

We followed movements of three avian predator species (northern goshawk, common buzzard, and lesser spotted eagle) in the breeding and post-breeding season to assess their dependence on SWF in agricultural landscapes and to determine the characteristics of woods influencing each species.

Methods

We compared time spent flying and perching, where perching sites were classified as open space, forest interior, forest edge, and SWF. Next, the relative importance of SWF and forest edges, as well as specific characteristics of each habitat, were evaluated using resource selection functions.

Results

All species spent most of the daytime perching, and preferentially utilized SWF and forest edges. Buzzards and eagles were not influenced by the characteristics of SWF, but goshawks preferred relatively large, dense patches.

Conclusions

We conclude that SWF are crucial for exploitation of agricultural landscapes by avian predators by providing suitable perching sites for foraging. We also detected variation in the quality of perching sites, suggesting that for some species (like the goshawk), artificial perching sites cannot compensate for a lack of SWF.

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Data availability

Raw data (referred to ‘dataset 1’ in Methods) is available at Mendeley Data repository, https://doi.org/10.17632/xxsdzhwct8.1

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Acknowledgements

We thank Urmas Abel, Jaan Grosberg, Margus Kirss, Ervin Komar, Madis Leivits, Pelle Mellov, Anni Miller, Freddy Rohtla, Jürgen Ruut, Urmas Sellis, Grete Tõnisalu, Piia Katharina Vaan, and Michał Zygmunt for help with trapping and tagging birds in the field. We also thank two anonymous reviewers, whose comments helped to improve this article.

Funding

The study was financed by the Estonian Environmental Investments Centre, the Estonian Environmental Board, and the Estonian University of Life Sciences (base financing Project No. 8-10/271, “Novel methods in bioindication and conservation of biodiversity in agroecosystems”). PM was supported by the European Regional Development Fund and the Mobilitas Pluss Programme (Grant No.: MOBJD402).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Kreutzwaldi 5, 51014, Tartu, Estonia

    Paweł Mirski & Ülo Väli

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  1. Paweł Mirski
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  2. Ülo Väli
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Contributions

PM designed the methodology; ÜV and PM led the tagging birds of prey; PM conducted data analysis; ÜV and PM wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Paweł Mirski.

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Mirski, P., Väli, Ü. Movements of birds of prey reveal the importance of tree lines, small woods and forest edges in agricultural landscapes. Landscape Ecol 36, 1409–1421 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-021-01223-9

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