Long-term trends in forest bird populations reflect management changes in Central European forests

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15310%2F22%3A73616876" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15310/22:73616876 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/00216208:11310/22:10448827

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X22006094" target="_blank" >https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X22006094</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109137" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109137</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Long-term trends in forest bird populations reflect management changes in Central European forests

Original language description

In areas where forest is under long-term human influence, we can expect that forest bird populations will be affected by changes in forest management. Consequences of such forest management changes can be studied using long-term population trajectories of habitat-defined groups of bird species because various species are associated to different habitat types. Here we focused on 51 species of common forest birds in Czechia, a central European country, using data from a nation-wide breeding bird monitoring scheme collected from 1982 to 2019. Important changes in forest management took place over this time period in Europe and we asked whether the trends in Czech forest bird populations reflected these changes. For this purpose, we defined nine groups ac-cording to the species&apos; habitat associations in respect of stand size, vegetation layers and tree species compo-sition. We calculated annual population indices using log-linear models with Poisson distribution for every species and composed these annual indices into multispecies indicators (MSIs). MSI of all forest birds, as well as MSIs of three groups of habitat generalists showed significant increases over the focal period. The groups of more specialized species showed more variable population trajectories: birds of the shrub layer decreased, whereas birds of the forest canopy and birds of broad-leaved trees increased, and populations of birds of forest edges, forest interior and coniferous trees were stable. These patterns in forest bird populations are consistent with forest maturation and increasing wood volume that took place in Czech forests over several decades. Such changes in forest environment are likely consequences of the change in purposes of forest management from fuel wood to timber harvesting that took place in 20th century resulting in a longer rotation period. Increases in species associated with broad-leaved trees can be explained by replacement of coniferous stands by stands of broad-leaved trees indicating recovery of forest environment towards more natural conditions as majority of the forested area would be naturally covered by broad-leaved vegetation in Czechia. In addition, the occurrence of some broad-leaved trees within coniferous stands, a common practice in Czech forestry, may also provide benefits to populations of bird species associated with broad-leaved trees. Taken together, these results support suitability of current forest management for forest birds that corresponds to recent findings from several other European regions. However, we should take this conclusion with caution because the increases of generalist birds may be also driven by factors outside the forest environment.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Ecological Indicators

ISSN

1470-160X

e-ISSN

1872-7034

Volume of the periodical

141

Issue of the periodical within the volume

AUG

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

13

Pages from-to

"109137-1"-"109137-13"

UT code for WoS article

000856279600002

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85133934772