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Project properties |
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| Title | Assessing food availability for farmland birds in nature-inclusive farmland |
| Group | Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 |
| Supervisor(s) | Zwanet Herbert |
| Examiner(s) | Thijs Fijen |
| Contact info | zwanet.herbert@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2024/02/01 |
| End date | 2024/12/31 |
| Description | Subsidizing the implementation of field margins is the main policy instrument to promote farmland biodiversity, but this measure alone was found to be insufficient to reverse negative population trends of farmland birds. Aspects of nature-inclusive agriculture are believed to improve the quality of agricultural landscapes for farmland birds by expanding the area of suitable nesting habitat and increasing crop diversity and spatial heterogeneity. In Drenthe and Groningen, a pilot study is conducted to study the effects of a combination of field margins and nature inclusive agriculture (strip cropping and adding protein crops to the crop rotation) on two ground-breeding farmland birds, the yellow wagtail and skylark.
In this project, the focus will be on food availability for skylark and yellow wagtail and whether measures of nature-inclusive agriculture offer better foraging habitats than common crops present in conventional agricultural land. During the breeding season, you will sample various foraging habitats within the agricultural landscape including measures such as alfalfa and field margins using arthropod sampling methods to capture the arthropod prey species of skylark and yellow wagtail. The findings will be linked to the foraging behaviour of the birds and their nestling condition. Depending on your goals and interests, observing breeding birds and their foraging behaviour can also be part of this thesis. All field work will take place in rather remote locations in the Drenthe and Groningen region, hence a drivers license is required for this thesis project. Extensive knowledge of insect identification is not needed as you will be learning this during the identification process. |
| Used skills | Fieldwork methods, working with sweep netting, pitfall traps
Arthropod identification Bird watching Statistical analysis |
| Requirements | drivers license |