Do agricultural sites provide high quality habitat for declining grassland songbirds?

农业用地是否为日益减少的草原鸣禽提供了高质量的栖息地？

• 批准号: 507360-2017
• 负责人: Stutchbury, Bridget
• 金额: $ 0.87万
• 依托单位: York University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Engage Plus Grants Program
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=640198
• 关键词: Do; agricultural; sites; provide; quality

Grassland birds are in steep decline throughout North America and these declines are caused mainly byregional habitat loss and degradation as a result of agricultural intensification. A key question is how canhabitat quality be improved in agricultural landscapes to benefit declining grassland birds? Few studies havetested how different agricultural habitats impact the breeding success. There is also an urgent need to studyhabitat selection of grassland songbirds in agricultural landscapes, both during and after nesting, to betterunderstand how habitat quality affects breeding females. Prior studies have been hampered by the high expenseand difficulty of radio-tracking songbirds. We are studying Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis), adeclining species in Canada and the U.S, near Guelph, ON. In 2016, funded by ENGAGE, we monitored 10nests from intensive agricultural sites and 26 from natural sites and found that nesting success was similar inthese vastly different habitats. Adult body mass was also not significantly different between agricultural andnon-agricultural sites for both males and females. We are also using innovative new technology (MOTUSautomated telemetry array) to remotely track the dispersal and habitat selection of post-breeding adults overtens of kilometers and up until the point of fall migration. Birds radiotagged with uniquely coded Nanotags areautomatically detected when they fly within 5-10 km of any of the dozens of receiver towers in southwesternOntario. In 2016 we tagged 14 adults in agricultural sites and 18 in natural sites; movement data will beavailable in Feb 2017 for analysis. We will use GIS analysis of landscape features to monitor post-breedinghabitat selection, and test if nesting habitat carries over to affect timing of fall migration. By continuing thisstudy in 2017, to increase sample sizes and to test for between-year effects (2016 was a drought year) ourresearch will identify which agricultural habitats can best sustain declining populations of grassland birds. Thisis expected to lead to management recommendations for farmers.

整个北美的草原鸟类数量急剧下降，主要是由于农业集约化造成的区域栖息地丧失和退化。一个关键的问题是，如何才能改善农业景观的栖息地质量，使日益减少的草原鸟类受益？很少有研究测试不同的农业栖息地如何影响繁殖成功。也有迫切需要研究草原鸣禽在农业景观中的栖息地选择，在筑巢期间和之后，以更好地了解栖息地质量如何影响繁殖雌性。先前的研究一直受到无线电追踪鸣禽的高成本和困难的阻碍。我们正在研究萨凡纳麻雀（Passerculus sparichensis），这是加拿大和美国在安大略省圭尔夫附近的濒危物种。2016年，在ENGAGE的资助下，我们监测了10个来自密集农业区的巢和26个来自自然区的巢，发现在这些截然不同的栖息地中，筑巢成功率相似。成年体质量也没有显着差异之间的农业和非农业网站的男性和女性。我们还使用创新的新技术（MOTUS自动遥测阵列）远程跟踪数十公里以上的繁殖后成虫的扩散和栖息地选择，直到秋季迁徙。在安大略省西南部的几十个接收塔中，当鸟类飞行在5-10公里的范围内时，用唯一编码的纳米标签进行无线电标记的鸟类会被自动检测到。2016年，我们在农业地点标记了14名成年人，在自然地点标记了18名成年人;移动数据将在2017年2月进行分析。我们将使用地理信息系统的景观特征分析，以监测后breedinghabitat选择，并测试如果筑巢栖息地结转影响秋季迁移的时间。通过在2017年继续这项研究，以增加样本量并测试年间影响（2016年是干旱年），我们的研究将确定哪些农业栖息地最能维持草原鸟类数量的下降。这将为农民提供管理建议。