Topsoil Seed Bank as Feeding Ground for Farmland Birds: A Comparative Assessment in Agricultural Habitats

Aikaterini Voudouri, Evgenia Chaideftou and Athanassios Sfougaris
Additional contact information
Aikaterini Voudouri: Crop Production and Rural Environment, Laboratory of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Management, Department of Agriculture, University of Thessaly, Fytokou Str., N. Ionia, GR-38446 Volos, Greece
Evgenia Chaideftou: Crop Production and Rural Environment, Laboratory of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Management, Department of Agriculture, University of Thessaly, Fytokou Str., N. Ionia, GR-38446 Volos, Greece
Athanassios Sfougaris: Crop Production and Rural Environment, Laboratory of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Management, Department of Agriculture, University of Thessaly, Fytokou Str., N. Ionia, GR-38446 Volos, Greece

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: The topsoil seed bank was studied in four types of agricultural bird habitats: fields with cereals, maize, clover and tilled fields of a Mediterranean plain to determine the potentially richest habitat based on food supply for the wintering farmland birds. The diversity and abundance of topsoil seeds differed between seasons but did not differ significantly between habitats. The cereal habitat was the richest in food supply for the overwintering of farmland birds. The topsoil seed bank was dominated by Chenopodium album , Polygonum aviculare and Amaranthus retroflexus . The findings of this study provide insight for low-intensity management of higher-elevation mount agricultural areas of southern Mediterranean by preserving seed-rich habitats for farmland avifauna.

Keywords: topsoil seed bank; farmland bird diet; agricultural ecosystem; biodiversity; habitat (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/9/967/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/9/967/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:9:p:967-:d:634795

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().