Keywords
agriculture
Argentina
land use
Pampean Region
pastoral farming
raptorial birds
Abstract
The Pampean Region of Argentina has been gradually and completely transformed by agriculture (croplands and pastoral farming) and urbanization. Currently, there is a N–S gradient from a pure cropland through mix-farming to a pure pastoral landscape. We examine the response of raptorial birds to agricultural intensity by surveying birds and land use along 17 transects covering the gradient. To examine the relationship between species presence or abundance and agricultural intensity we used logistic and simple regressions and correlograms. We used Mantel Test and Redundancy Analysis to explore relationships between bird abundance and landscape elements. We recorded a total of 11 raptor species. Abundance of the raptor assemblage responded to the spatial structure of land use in the region, being more abundant in pastoral farming landscapes. Nonetheless, most species were found in both croplands and pastoral landscapes. From a regional perspective, the use of the land for crops seems to be more detrimental to raptors than pastoral farming, even though most raptor species showed to be tolerant to land use. However, within each particular landscape (cropland or pastoral land), the studied raptor species showed differences in the type of habitat they exploit.
References
BELLOCQ MI (1993) Reproducción, crecimiento y mor-talidad de Athene cunicularia (lechucita de lasvizcacheras) en agrosistemas de Argentina. Hornero13:272–276
BELLOCQ MI (1997) Ecology of the Burrowing owl inagrosystems of central Argentina. Journal of RaptorResearch Reports 9:35–41
BELLOCQ MI Y GÓMEZ-INSAUSTI JR (2005) Raptorialbirds and environmental gradients in the southernNeotropics: a test of species-richness hypotheses.Austral Ecology 30:900–906
BIBBY C, JONES M Y MARDSEN S (1998) Expedition fieldtechniques. Bird Surveys. Royal Geographical Society,Londres
BIRD DM, VARLAND D Y NEGRO JJ (1996) Raptors inhuman landscapes. Academic Press, Londres
TER BRAAK CJF (1995) Ordination. Pp. 91–173 en:JONGMAN RHG, TER BRAAK CJF YVA N TONGEREN OFR(eds) Data analysis in community and landscape ecol-ogy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
CABRERA A (1971) Fitogeografía de la Argentina. Boletínde la Sociedad Argentina de Botánica 14:1–43
CUETO VR Y LOPEZDE CASENAVE J (1999) Determinantsof bird species richness: role of climate and vegeta-tion structure at a regional scale. Journal of Biogeo-graphy 26:487–492
DE FINA AL (1992) Aptitud agroclimática de la RepúblicaArgentina. Academia Nacional de Agronomía yVeterinaria, Buenos Aires
DINIZ-FILHO JAF, BINI LM Y HAWKINS BA (2003) Spa-tial autocorrelation and red herrings in geo-graphical ecology. Global Ecology and Biogeography- 12:53–64
DINIZ-FILHO JAF, RANGEL TFLVB Y HAWKINS BA(2004) A test of multiple hypothesis of the diver-sity gradient of South American owls. Oecologia140:633–638
DONÁZAR JA, CEBALLOS O, TRAVAINI A E HIRALDO F(1993) Roadside raptor surveys in the ArgentineanPatagonia. Journal of Raptor Research 27:106–110
FILLOY J Y BELLOCQ MI (2006) Spatial variation in theabundance of Sporophila seedeaters in the southernNeotropics: contrasting the effects of agriculturaldevelopment and geographical position. Biodiversityand Conservation 15:3329–3340
FILLOY J Y BELLOCQ MI (2007) Patterns of bird abun-dance along the agricultural gradient of the Pam-pean region. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment120:291–298
GOLDSTEIN MI, LACHER TE, WOODBRIDGE B, BECHARDMJ, CANAVELLI SB, ZACCAGNINI ME, COBB GP,SCOLLON EJ, TRIBOLET R Y HOOPER MJ (1999)Monocrotophos-induced mass mortality of Swain-son’s hawks in Argentina, 1995-95. Ecotoxicology8:201–214
HARTLEY RR, HUSTLER K Y MUNDY PJ (1996) The im-pact of man on raptors in Zimbabwe. Pp. 337–354en: BIRD DM, VARLAND D Y NEGRO JJ (eds) Raptors inhuman landscapes. Academic Press, Londres
HERNÁNDEZ VÁZQUEZ S, DURAND MARTÍNEZ BC,ESPARZA SALAS R Y VALADEZ GONZÁLEZ C (2000) Dis-tribución temporal de aves rapaces diurnas en laReserva “Playón de Mismaloya”. Revista de BiologíaTropical 48:1015–1018HERREMANS M Y HERREMANS-TONNOEYR D (2000) Landuse and the conservation status of raptors inBotswana. Biological Conservation 94:31–41INTA (1990) Atlas de suelos de la República Argentina.Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria,Buenos AiresLEGENDRE P Y LEGENDRE L (1998) Numerical ecology.Elsevier, AmsterdamLEÓN RJC, RUSCH GM Y OESTERHELD M (1984)Pastizales pampeanos — impacto agropecuario.Phytocoenologia 12:201–218LEVEAU LM Y LEVEAU CM (2002) Uso de hábitat poraves rapaces en un agroecosistema pampeano.Hornero 17:9–15
LEVEAU LM Y LEVEAU CM (2004) Efectos de la urbani-zación en la distribución y abundancia del chimangoMilvago chimango en Mar del Plata, Argentina, duranteun ciclo anual. Pp. 12–13 en: Actas del Primer SimposioArgentino sobre Investigación y Conservación de Rapaces,Museo de La Plata, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1y 2 de octubre de 2004. Museo de La Plata, La Plata
MEFFE GK Y CARROLL CR (1997) Principles of conserva-tion biology. Segunda edición. Sinauer Associates,Sunderland
MEYNARD C, SAMANIEGO H Y MARQUET P (2004)Biogeografía de aves rapaces de Chile. Pp. 129–143en: MUÑOZ-PEDREROS A, RAU J Y YAÑEZ J (eds) Avesrapaces de Chile. CEA Ediciones, Valdivia
NAROSKY T Y DI GIACOMO AG (1993) Las aves de la Pro-vincia de Buenos Aires: distribución y estatus. Asocia-ción Ornitológica del Plata, Vázquez Mazzini Edi-tores y LOLA, Buenos Aires
PRESTON CR Y BEANE RD (1996) Occurrence and dis-tribution of diurnal raptors in relation to humanactivity and other factors at Rocky Mountain Arse-nal, Colorado. Pp. 365–374 en: BIRD DM, VARLANDD Y NEGRO JJ (eds) Raptors in human landscapes. Aca-demic Press, Londres
RABINOVICH JE Y RAPOPORT EH (1975) Geographicalvariation of diversity in Argentine passerine birds.Journal of Biogeography 2:141–157
RALPH CJ, GEUPEL GR, PYLE P, MARTIN TE, DESANTEDF Y MILÁ B (1995) Manual de métodos de campo parael monitoreo de aves terrestres. USDA Forest ServiceGeneral Technical Report PRW-GTR, Albany
RODRÍGUEZ-ESTRELLA R (1996) Response of commonBlack hawks and Crested caracaras to human ac-tivities in Mexico. Pp. 355–364 en: BIRD DM,VARLAND D Y NEGRO JJ (eds) Raptors in human land-scapes. Academic Press, Londres
RODRÍGUEZ-ESTRELLA R (2007) Land use changes af-fect distributional patterns of desert birds in the BajaCalifornia peninsula, Mexico. Diversity and Distri-butions 13:877–889
RODRÍGUEZ-ESTRELLA R, DONÁZAR JA E HIRALDO F(1998) Raptors as indicators of environmentalchange in the scrub habitat of Baja California Sur,Mexico. Conservation Biology 12:921–925
ROHDE K (1992) Latitudinal gradients in species di-versity: the search for the primary cause. Oikos65:514–527
SAGPYA (2006) La integración de la ganadería argenti-na. Situación de la ganadería pampeana. Secretaría deAgricultura, Ganadería, Pesca y Alimentos, Minis-terio de Economía y Producción de la RepúblicaArgentina, Buenos Aires
SÁNCHEZ-ZAPATA JA Y CALVO JF (1999) Raptor distri-bution in relation to landscape composition in semi-arid Mediterranean habitats. Journal of Applied Ecol-ogy 36:254–262
SÁNCHEZ-ZAPATA JA, CARRETE M, GRAVILOV A, SKLYA-RENKO S, CEVALLOS O, DONÁZAR JA E HIRALDO F (2003)Land use changes and raptor conservation in steppehabitats of eastern Kazakhstan. Biological Conserva-tion 111:71–77
SERGIO F, NEWTON I Y MARCHESI L (2005) Top preda-tors and biodiversity. Nature 436:192
SMALLWOOD SK, NAKAMOTO BJ Y GENG S (1996) Asso-ciation analysis of raptors on a farming landscape.Pp. 177–190 en: BIRD DM, VARLAND D Y NEGRO JJ(eds) Raptors in human landscapes. Academic Press,Londres
THIOLLAY JM (1996) Rain forest raptor communitiesin Sumatra: the conservation value of traditionalagroforest. Pp. 245–261 en: BIRD DM, VARLAND D YNEGRO JJ (eds) Raptors in human landscapes. AcademicPress, Londres
VA N TONGEREN OFR (1995) Cluster analysis. Pp. 174–212en: JONGMAN RHG, TER BRAAK CJF YVA N TONGERENOFR (eds) Data analysis in community and landscapeecology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
TRAVAINI A, RODRÍGUEZ A, CEBALLOS O, DONÁZAR JA EHIRALDO F (1995) Roadside raptor surveys in Cen-tral Argentina. Hornero 14:64–66
WIENS JA (1989) Spatial scaling in ecology. FunctionalEcology 3:385–387
WILLIG MR, KAUFMAN DM Y STEVENS RD (2003) Lati-tudinal gradients of biodiversity: pattern, process,scale and synthesis. Annual Review of Ecology andSystematics 34:273–309
ZURITA GA Y BELLOCQ MI (2007) Pérdida y fragmen-tación de la Selva Paranaense: efectos sobre las avesrapaces diurnas. Hornero 22:141–147
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.