Positive short-term effects of sheep grazing on the alpine avifauna.
نویسندگان
چکیده
Grazing by large herbivores may negatively affect bird populations. This is of great conservation concern in areas with intensive sheep grazing. Sheep management varies substantially between regions, but no study has been performed in less intensively grazed systems. In a fully replicated, landscape scale experiment with three levels of sheep grazing, we tested whether the abundance and diversity of an assemblage of mountain birds were negatively affected by grazing or if grazing facilitated the bird assemblage. Density of birds was higher at high sheep density compared with low sheep density or no sheep by the fourth grazing season, while there was no clear effect on bird diversity. Thus, agricultural traditions and land use politics determining sheep density may change the density of avifauna in either positive or negative directions.
منابع مشابه
The short-term effect of sheep grazing on selected invertebrates (Diptera and Hemiptera) relative to other environmental factors in an alpine ecosystem
Grazing by large herbivores is well-known to influence plant communities, while much fewer studies have been carried out on grazing effects on invertebrates. In Norway, some 2.2 million sheep graze on outlying pastures during summer, most of them in the alpine zone, but no study has reported the relative impact of sheep grazing on invertebrate communities relative to other environmental factors...
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ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- Biology letters
دوره 3 1 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2007