Evaluation of a general ecosystem state indicator based on farmland birds

Abstract

The comparison analysis and assessment of certain landscapes and landscape units is an effective tool for the decision makers for meeting appropriate land use decision. In our analysis we compared various groups of indices applicable for ecological landscape assessment applying them on three lowland landscape units. The assessed indices characterize the landscape from the point of view of vegetation (vegetation-based natural capital index) and birds (diversity of birds species of agricultural areas). The vegetation-based natural capital index values have been derived from the MÉTA database collected between 2003 and 2008. The ornithological survey was carried out in the spring of 2011 by modified Danish point counting system. Our sample areas were the geographical micro-regions Csepelisík, Hortobágy and Nagyberek, which are landscapes dominated by agricultural lands and grasslands. The major question was whether different naturalness indicators characterize basically similar but differently used landscape areas in a similar way. We found that while a higher NCI value corresponds to a higher abundance of birds, it also corresponds to a lower diversity of bird species. This contraintuitive effect partially might be explained by the variance of the large-scale landscape structure of the assessed landscape areas. © 2014, ALöKI Kft., Budapest, Hungary.