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Project properties |
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| Title | Quantification of farmland birds in diversified Dutch, arable cropping systems and monocultural arable cropping systems |
| Group | Farming Systems Ecology |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Dirk van Apeldoorn |
| Examiner(s) | Walter Rossing |
| Contact info | dirk.vanapeldoorn@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2018/03/01 |
| End date | 2021/06/01 |
| Description | Keywords: Farmland birds, Bird census, ornithology, agro-biodiversity, partridges, skylarks.
In this project you will contribute to research on arable birds, in agricultural landscapes by quantifying birds’ preferences. The FSE group has started several experiments (field scale) across the Netherlands on cropping systems diversification. In these experiments we see early signs that typical farmland birds like grey partridge and skylark have a preference for these, divers cropping fields. When you are a birder yourself you probably know about the grey partridges at the Droevendaal farm. In this project we intend to quantify birds’ in diversified cropping systems across the Netherlands using standard bird census protocols from the Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology SOVON. During the breeding season, you will visit fields of a diverse range of arable farmers, in the provinces of Gelderland, Utrecht, Flevopolder and Groningen and map breeding farmland birds in low diversity arable fields and high diversity arable fields. Thesis objective: Quantification of breeding farmland birds at fields of farms experimenting with diversification in arable cropping versus monoculture arable cropping |
| Used skills | -farmland birds and their ecology
-bird census techniques -System thinking; weekly meetings are held with fellow students to elucidate interactions between system components. -Quantification of ecosystem services; you will be responsible for the quantification of one or several services following protocols. -Statistical analysis of systems experiments; you will use the statistical software R for generalizing your findings. -Scientific writing; your report will be in the format of scientific article |
| Requirements | Assumed knowledge or ability to acquire this knowledge on self-study:
-system analysis (like FSE-30306), -agro-ecology (like FSE-31806), -knowledge of farmland birds |