Friday's Agripop Talk
19 April 2013 - 11:30 - Salle Seminaire (!)
From habitat use to habitat selection: which key factors drive breeding little bustard distribution?
This week's talk will be about a really cool species, the Little Bustard (Tetrax tetrax). This species is also of high conservation concern (Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List) as it prefers open grasslands and undisturbed habitat -- requirements which often conflict with agricultural practices.
Whilst the species has gone extinct in several parts of Europe, especially in the east, several populations still survive in southern and western France. One remarkably high density population lives in France, in the Costière Nîmoise, near the city of Nîmes in southern France, with around 700 breeding males in an area of just 40km length! Not surprisingly the area is protected since 2006 and a current question of interest is understanding which are the key factors allowing to obtain such high population densities, as this would be quite handy to know for improving the conditions for other breeding populations.
All fine, hence? Well, not really. This year a new TGV train line will start to be build right across this protected area...
Yeah, indeed an unfortunate state of affairs. Apparently the decision cannot be reversed, but Pierrick's work is part of an initiative funded to find ways to mitigate the impact on this important breeding population. As part of this, Pierrick has already concluded one field season last year and will present us some new results on the patterns and drivers of Little Bustard breeding habitat selection. Here the official abstract of the talk:
Conservation measures generally act on landscape composition at
large and fine scale. However, global distribution and local density are not only under
environmental influences. Social factors play an important role, especially
in species with complex mating system. Hence the real question is about habitat selection. This study will investigate the relative weight of social and
environmental factors in habitat selection on a protected species in a
high sensibility context of conservation.
Especially, the population lives in an agricultural landscapes and agricultural practices profoundly determine and change the landscape structure. The different roles of soil occupancy on vegetation type and structure,
and hence foraging availability, will be studied and the role of intra and inter sexual
interactions explored. Conclusions are expected to help managers to build efficient conservation
measures.
So, a really interesting talk - and as you have seen Pierrick has taken also great pictures of Little Bustards during his last field season -- so come, listen, and enjoy! And let's hope his work will help improve mitigation measures, so that also in the future we'll be able to see flocks of this bird flying and breeding in this population.
No comments:
Post a Comment