Impact of Management on Avian Communities in the Scottish Highlands

Charlotte K Hemelrijk,Scott Newey,Nils Bunnefeld,Debbie Fielding,Bronwen Daniel,R Justin Irvine,Steve Redpath,Rosalind Bryce,Karen Mustin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0155473

Abstract

The protection of biodiversity is a key national and international policy objective. While protected areas provide one approach, a major challenge lies in understanding how the conservation of biodiversity can be achieved in the context of multiple land management objectives in the wider countryside. Here we analyse metrics of bird diversity in the Scottish uplands in relation to land management types and explore how bird species composition varies in relation to land managed for grazing, hunting and conservation. Birds were surveyed on the heather moorland areas of 26 different landholdings in Scotland. The results indicate that, in relation to dominant management type, the composition of bird species varies but measures of diversity and species richness do not. Intensive management for grouse shooting affects the occurrence, absolute and relative abundance of bird species. While less intensive forms of land management appear to only affect the relative abundance of species, though extensive sheep grazing appears to have little effect on avian community composition. Therefore enhanced biodiversity at the landscape level is likely to be achieved by maintaining heterogeneity in land management among land management units. This result should be taken into account when developing policies that consider how to achieve enhanced biodiversity outside protected areas, in the context of other legitimate land-uses.

Highlights

Halting and reversing the current and rapid loss of biodiversity is a major contemporary challenge for society [1,2]
Management activity on overall avian diversity, some species and assemblages are more strongly associated with certain management types. This implies that maintaining diversity in land management at the landscape scale, at least among the management types we investigated, may help to maximise biological diversity in the wider countryside
Suggest that predator control alone has no significant effect on avian species richness, diversity or community composition we only had a simple binary index indicating whether the management action took place or not and the widespread use of predator control in our sample of estates might partially explain why we found no significant effect on our indices of bird diversity

Summary

Introduction

Halting and reversing the current and rapid loss of biodiversity is a major contemporary challenge for society [1,2]. Biological diversity is important both for its intrinsic value and because of its fundamental role in providing ecosystem services and benefits upon which we all depend [2,3,4,5,6]. While the use of protected areas remains a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation (hereafter conservation), the majority of land lies outside protected areas, and it is increasingly.

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