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Antje Gärtner

Doctoral student

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Habitat preferences of male corn buntings emberiza calandra in North-Eastern Germany

Author

  • Andrea Altewischer
  • Ulrike Buschewski
  • Christian Ehrke
  • Johannes Fröhlich
  • Antje Gärtner
  • Peter Giese
  • Franziska Günter
  • Nadja Heitmann
  • Maren Hestermann
  • Hannes Hoffmann
  • Friederike Kleinschmidt
  • Björn Kniepkamp
  • Wilhelm Linke
  • Tore Mayland-Quellhorst
  • Jonas Pape
  • Tom Peterson
  • Vanessa Schendel
  • Sarah Schwieger
  • Andrea Wadenstorfer
  • Klaus Fischer
Show all

Summary, in English

Agricultural ecosystems have faced dramatic changes during past decades, resulting in a dramatic loss of farmland biodiversity. The Corn Bunting Emberiza calandra is considered a suitable indicator for the conservation value of farmland habitats, and has recently suffered strong declines throughout much of its European range. As a basis for targeted conservation measures, we investigated the habitat preferences of this species in north-eastern Germany by comparing the composition of male territories with randomly chosen control sites. A territory was defined as the area within a radius of 150 meters around the assumed centre of the territory, as the majority of nests is found within this radius. To assess food availability for nestlings, arthropod abundance within the most abundant land use types i.e. crop fields, fallows, grassland as well as within unploughed strips was investigated. In total we found 102 male Corn Bunting territories, which were mainly composed of crop fields (50%), grassland (28%), and fallows (12%). Territories compared with control sites were characterized by a lower proportion of crop fields, a higher proportion of fallows, more diverse land use types, more abundant field boundaries, unploughed strips, and tracks, and a higher availability of song posts. However, neither the number of larger (≥ 1 cm), smaller (< 1 cm) or all arthropods differed significantly among analysed land use types i.e. crop fields, fallows, grassland, unploughed strips. Our study confirms the significance of habitat heterogeneity and especially of sites with sparse vegetation (fallows > 10%) and song posts (> 70 m 'linear song posts' or > 1 solitary post per ha) for the habitat selection of male Corn Buntings. We conclude that measures to halt population declines of Corn Buntings seem to be relatively easy to implement, provided that farmers are granted a fair compensation.

Publishing year

2015-06-01

Language

English

Pages

1-10

Publication/Series

Acta Ornithologica

Volume

50

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Polish Academy of Sciences

Topic

  • Ecology

Keywords

  • agricultural landscape
  • bunting
  • fallows
  • farmland biodiversity
  • farmland bird
  • field boundary
  • habitat heterogeneity
  • habitat selection

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0001-6454