engleski

Assessing the effect of agricultural land abandonment on bird communities in Southern-Eastern Europe

Agricultural land abandonment is recognized as a major environmental threat in Europe, being particularly pronounced in south-eastern Europe, where knowledge on its effects is limited. Taking as a case study the Balkan Peninsula, we investigated agricultural abandonment effect on passerine communities at regional scale. We set up a standard methodology for site selection (70 sites) and data collection along a well-defined forest encroachment gradient that reflects land abandonment in four countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece. Regardless the different socio-economic and political histories in the Balkans that led to diverse land abandonment patterns in space and time, rural abandonment had a consistent negative effect on bird communities at regional level. Regional-level analysis revealed patterns that were hidden at the local scales. The general trend was the increase of forest-dwelling bird species at the expense of farmland birds, the decline of overall bird relative abundance and species richness, as well as the decline of Species of European Conservation Concern (SPEC) richness. Land abandonment also altered bird community composition, with 17 species significantly declining, out of which nine were SPEC and eight were farmland species. Our study pinpointed a set of six dissimilarity indicator species, as well as a 50% woody vegetation cover threshold, as tools to be integrated in HNV farmland designation and monitoring schemes. The effect of agricultural abandonment in different countries should be further investigated under a common methodological frame across Europe, while policies against agricultural land abandonment should be tailored to local needs, after the timely identification of High Nature Value farmland most prone to abandonment.

land abandonment; passerine birds; Balkans; CAP; HNV farmland

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