Relationship of the Common Treecreeper Certhia familiaris to edge effect and forest fragmentation

Abstract

The paper deals with two questions : 1) Do the breeding success of the Treecreeper and its occupancy of nest-boxes vary in relation to the proximity of the forest edge (data from S Finland)? 2) What is the area of the smallest forest fragments andreal islands accepted by a breeding Treecreeper pair (seven data sets from northern and western Europe)? According to the breeding records the egg-laying date, clutch size and size of breeding adults did not differ in relation to the proximity of the forest edge . A greater proportion of nests (37%) was destroyed in forest margins (50 ha, 65%) exceeded that in smaller ones (