Agricultural intensification and the collapse of Europe's farmland bird populations

摘要: The populations of farmland birds in Europe declined markedly during the last quarter 20th century, representing a severe threat to biodiversity. Here, we assess whether declines and ranges across reflect differences agricultural intensity, which arise largely through political history. Population range changes were modelled terms number indices intensity. contractions significantly greater countries with more intensive agriculture, higher European Union (EU) than former communist countries. Cereal yield alone explained over 30% variation population trends. results suggest that recent trends agriculture have had deleterious measurable effects on bird continental scale. We predict introduction EU policies into hoping accede near future will result significant important there.