A Backward-Looking Perspective of Land-Use Change Impacts on Bird Communities in Southern Quebec

Abstract

Habitat loss and degradation are among the major threats to biodiversity. Using bird atlas data, we predicted the response of 128 bird species to land-use changes in southern Québec between “1984–89” and “2010–2014.” Declining species were mostly short-distance migrants, associated with open habitats and aerial insectivorous or granivorous diets, which may be related to agricultural intensification and land abandonment. Land-use changes were positive for some forest species, associated with mixed and deciduous forests, generalist diets, and tree-nesting strategies. Yet cavity-nesting birds have suffered reductions in their distributions, suggesting that effects of intensive logging pose a threat for mature forest-specialist species. Photo by Christine Lepage. Photo by Pierre Drapeau. These photographs illustrate the article “Hindcasting the impacts of land-use changes on bird communities with species distribution models of Bird Atlas data” by A. Regos, L. Imbeau, M. Desrochers, A. Leduc, M. Robert, B. Jobin, L. Brotons and P. Drapeau, published in Ecological Applications. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1784.