Research team:
Coordinator
Researcher´s:
Ing. Ivana Šálková
Ing. Václav Zámečník
Moderation of habitat fragmentation impact in the CR through supporting nest sites and breeding populations of waders (ACTIVITY 6)
Consistent protection of nest sites is considered an effective step towards reducing negative consequences of wetland and grassland fragmentation in (agri)cultural landscapes on wader populations. The aim of ACTIVITY 6 is to update, extend and to provide for public use the database of current wader breeding sites across the country, especially of the most common breeder, the Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus). The database serves a long term accessible source of information useful for management of the species and its habitat to sustain productive wader populations in central European agricultural landscape.
Field research:
Intensification of farming has brought about extensive reductions in the size and large-scale fragmentation of grassy and wetland biotopes representing feeding and refuge places for many species of plants and animals. The northern lapwing is a rapidly declining species. It is also a good indicator of the diversity of invertebrate community on which it feeds, and the risks of predation of bird nests in the landscape. Its presence is sought by other protected species, such as the critically endangered black-tailed godwit and the common redshank. Seeking ways to a systematic and effective protection of nesting populations of lapwings in the Czech Republic has at least three important aspects in terms of support for biodiversity: (1) primarily, it is direct assistance to a rapidly declining bird species which always belonged to the regular and in places numerous members of the bird fauna in the agricultural landscape, (2) by protecting selected places with nesting lapwings we can secure refuges for the life of many families of organisms with similar demands on the environment, (3) the current support for a great number of nesting places is an effective step in the alleviation of the negative impacts of fragmentation of wetland and grassy biotopes in the cultural landscape.
This part of the project aimed to gather data for a systematic and effective protection of nesting populations of the northern lapwing across the Czech Republic. A key step was the building of a database of lapwing nesting places in the Czech Republic and determination of the effectiveness and the perspective of their protection by means of an appropriate agro-environmental measure (AEM).
An on-line database was set up for storing data on the incidence of lapwings collected by volunteers across the Czech Republic at the address of the Czech Ornithological Society http://cejka.birds.cz. A website was launched at the same time, www.cso.cz/cejka.html, with all necessary information for those interested in mapping.
In parallel with data collection, volunteers across the Czech Republic conducted detailed research on the populations of lapwings in the districts of České Budějovice and Hradec Králové, two major nesting areas of the species in the country. We acquired a quantity of data on the numbers of nesting pairs and their spatial distribution, habitat selection, timing and course of nesting, threatening factors, nesting success, and causes of losses. A special part of the project included monitoring activities of lapwings with their young via telemetry. Photo traps were installed near nests to detect predators and monitor the progress of nesting. In 2015 we monitored a total of 297 nests in 73 nesting places with a total area of 640 km2. In all, 203 chicks were marked. In 2016, 230 nests were monitored in 90 nesting places in a territory of 730 km2 and 35 chicks were marked. Nesting success in 2016 was significantly lower compared to the year 2015, mainly due to high predation of nests which was due mainly to foxes. The results of telemetry showed high mortality of chickens and risks arising from the presence of tall crops (winter crops). As a suitable indicator of the productivity of chicks we chose the moisture conditions in the localities. We demonstrated that decreasing waterlogging, combined with high vegetation, leads to the abandonment of localities, increasing the risk of predation or mortality in dense vegetation during migration.
We used data from working computerised database of the monitoring of nesting lapwing population to identify areas suitable for the application of AEM. The points structure was manually transferred to the structure of the soil blocks in accordance with the system used by the land registry, LPIS. The key items to consider were the presence of water in lapwing nesting places and history of the occupation of lapwings which helped to prioritise the sites in terms of the severity of the AEM title and estimate its effectiveness. With the use of geodata from the project CORINE LandCover and a maximum entropy algorithm we created a model of the expected incidence of the northern lapwing nesting in the territory of the Czech Republic.
In total, the targeted mapping of the nesting lapwings involved 415 surveyors, who contributed more than 4,000 records. We recorded more than 1,600 land parcels with the occurrence of nesting lapwings, usually 2-3 pairs nesting on one, rarely two to three dozen pairs. More than 75% of the nesting places are on arable land with the highest concentration in ploughed fields; 30% of the places represent regular nesting places on land blocks with a certain degree of waterlogging. The estimated nesting population amounts to 3,400 pairs of lapwings, which is approximately one half of the total population in the Czech Republic. The predictive model includes over 7,000 polygons, which are primarily designed to control the population of lapwings in the future.
Model prediction of the incidence of nesting lapwings in the Czech Republic (in red) and known population kept in the database (in green). The contiguous red surfaces will be the focus of interest in the coming years.
Model territory showing the degree of fragmentation of nesting places of northern lapwings according to the register with colouring of the areas according to the priority of protection. In green and red are the most important registered nesting places; in grey other sites localities considered for inclusion in the AEM. Areas already designated for AEM in 2016 are framed in yellow. It is clear that in this area the current size of the areas designated to AEM is not sufficient seeing the potential that the area holds.
In 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture introduced a new AEM to protect nesting pairs of northern lapwings in the Czech Republic on arable land. The database of nesting places is thus becoming an important tool for the selection of areas suitable for practical application of this AEM.
However, of the 400 officially recognised land blocks for the agro-environmental measure on 34 were used in 2016. In order to increase the popularity of the measure a prepared motivational poster was produced to increase farmers' awareness of this title and interest in it.
This project obtained data for the application of systematic and effective protection of the nesting lapwing population within a selected network (still existing) of locations across the country. Protection of this model bird species and its nesting places may encourage other taxa with similar ecological requirements to mitigate the consequences of the fragmentation of grassland and wetland habitats in the cultural landscape.
Photogallery:
