Exploring farmland ecology to assess habitat suitability for birds

Abstract

Farmland harbors valuable biodiversity, providing habitats and associated resources for birds. However, environmental change is affecting the habitat availability within agricultural landscapes. Thus, conserving farmland areas that have the potential to provide habitats for birds is increasingly considered to mitigate pressure on ecological systems. Incorporating these concerns into bird habitat analysis to aid in conservation actions is needed to assist policy developers in protecting bird habitats in Taiwan efficiently. In the present study, we propose combining an expert-based approach with empirical data to develop an evaluation of bird habitat suitability on farmlands. Experts were initially gathered to construct a research framework and then express their judgments on ecological factors. We obtained the significant factors such as farmland fragmentation, farmland landscape heterogeneity, and distance to surrounding vegetation within fifteen evaluated sub-criteria under four criteria of farmland functionality, farmland utilization, farmland located within a major conservation area, and farmland landscape ecology as the habitat requirements of birds. Combing the weight-based priority and empirical data, we finally determined a highly suitable habitat for birds accounting for 31.92% of farmlands. In an assessment involving bird distribution records in the study area, the accuracy derived from model validation is 91.25%. The findings of this work can provide authorities and policymakers with potential hotspots for ecosystem conservation.

Keywords

• Birds
• Farmland
• Habitat suitability
• Expert knowledge
• Analytic Network Process