The influence of landscape characteristics on breeding bird dark diversity

The exploration of factors and processes affecting biodiversity loss is central to nature management and wildlife conservation, but only recently has knowledge about the absence of species been recognized as a valuable asset to understand the current biodiversity crisis. In this paper, we explore th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Oecologia Vol. 201; no. 4; pp. 1039 - 1052
Main Authors:	Andersen, Astrid Holm, Clausen, Kevin Kuhlmann, Normand, Signe, Vikstrøm, Thomas, Moeslund, Jesper Erenskjold
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-04-2023 Springer Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:	Agriculture Animal breeding Animals Biodiversity Biodiversity loss Biological diversity Biomedical and Life Sciences Birds Breeding Coastal zone Community Ecology–Original Research Conservation of Natural Resources Ecology Ecosystem Endangered species Heterogeneity Human impact Humans Hydrology/Water Resources Intensive farming Landscape Life Sciences Livestock breeding Nature conservation Plant Sciences Probability theory Protection and preservation Species diversity Threatened species Wildlife conservation Wildlife habitats Wildlife management Red list Management Biodiversity Beals’ index Conservation
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Summary:	The exploration of factors and processes affecting biodiversity loss is central to nature management and wildlife conservation, but only recently has knowledge about the absence of species been recognized as a valuable asset to understand the current biodiversity crisis. In this paper, we explore the dark diversity (species that belong to a site-specific species pool but that are not locally present) of breeding birds in Denmark assessed through species co-occurrence patterns. We apply a nation-wide atlas survey of breeding birds (with a 5 × 5 km resolution), to investigate how landscape characteristics may influence avian diversity, and whether threatened and near threatened species are more likely to occur in dark diversity than least concern (LC) species. On average, the dark diversity constituted 41% of all species belonging to the site-specific species pools and threatened and near-threatened species had a higher probability of belonging to the dark diversity than least concern species. Habitat heterogeneity was negatively related to dark diversity and the proportional cover of intensive agriculture positively related, implying that homogeneous landscapes dominated by agricultural interests led to more absent avian species. Finally, we found significant effects of human disturbance and distance to the coast, indicating that more breeding bird species were missing when human disturbance was high and in near-coastal areas. Our study provides the first attempt to investigate dark diversity among birds and highlights how important landscape characteristics may shape breeding bird diversity and reveal areas of considerable species impoverishment.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Communicated by Robert L Thomson .
ISSN:	0029-8549 1432-1939
DOI:	10.1007/s00442-023-05351-8