Contrasting population trends of Common Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) across Europe

Authors

  • Henning Heldbjerg
  • Åke Lindström
  • Charlotte Moshøj
  • Renno Nellis
  • Jean-Y. Paquet
  • Danae Portolou
  • Jozef Ridzoň
  • Hans Schmid
  • Jana Skorpilová
  • Zoltán D. Szabó
  • Tibor Szép
  • Norbert Teufelbauer
  • Sven Trautmann
  • Chris van Turnhout
  • Zdeněk Vermouzek
  • Petr Voříšek
  • Lesley J. Lewis
  • John A. Kålås
  • Anthony D. Fox
  • Aleksi Lehikoinen
  • Peter Sunde
  • Ainars Aunins
  • Dawn E. Balmer
  • Gianpiero Calvi
  • Tomasz Chodkiewicz
  • Przemek Chylarecki
  • Virginia Escandell
  • Ruud Foppen
  • Anna Gamero
  • Iordan Hristov
  • Magne Husby
  • Frederic Jiguet
  • Primož Kmecl
  • Anne Weiserbs
DOI: https://doi.org/10.51812/of.133957

Abstract

The greatest loss of biodiversity in the EU has occurred on agricultural land. The Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is one of the many numerous and widespread European farmland breeding bird species showing major population declines linked to European agricultural intensification. Here we present results based on monitoring data collected since 1975 in 24 countries to examine the influence of changing extent of grassland and cattle abundance (based on results of earlier studies showing the importance of lowland cattle grazed grassland for the species), wintering provenance and temperature on national breeding population trends of Starlings across Europe. Positive Starling population trends in Central-East Europe contrast with negative trends in North and West Europe. Based on this indicative approach, we found some support for the importance of cattle stock and no support for grassland, temperature or wintering provenance to explain Starling population trends in Europe.
Issue
Vol. 96 No. 4 (2019)
Section
Research articles

Published

2019-12-31

How to Cite

Heldbjerg, H., Lindström, Åke, Moshøj, C., Nellis, R., Paquet, J.-Y., Portolou, D., Ridzoň, J., Schmid, H., Skorpilová, J., Szabó, Z. D., Szép, T., Teufelbauer, N., Trautmann, S., van Turnhout, C., Vermouzek, Z., Voříšek, P., Lewis, L. J., Kålås, J. A., Fox, A. D., Lehikoinen, A., Sunde, P., Aunins, A., Balmer, D. E., Calvi, G., Chodkiewicz, T., Chylarecki, P., Escandell, V., Foppen, R., Gamero, A., Hristov, I., Husby, M., Jiguet, F., Kmecl, P., & Weiserbs, A. (2019). Contrasting population trends of Common Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) across Europe. Ornis Fennica, 96(4), 153–168. https://doi.org/10.51812/of.133957