Does intensive goose grazing affect breeding waders?

ABSTRACT: Increasing goose population sizes gives rise to conflicts with human socioeconomic interests and in some circumstances conservation interests. Grazing by high abundances of geese in grasslands is postulated to lead to a very short and homogeneous sward height negatively affecting cover for breeding meadow birds and impacting survival of nests and chicks. We studied the effects of spring grazing barnacle geese Branta leucopsis and brent geese Branta bernicla on occupancy of extensively farmed freshwater grasslands by nesting and brood-rearing waders on the island Mandø in the Danish Wadden Sea. We hypothesized that goose grazing would lead to a shorter grass sward, negatively affecting the field occupancy by territorial/nesting and chick-rearing waders, particularly species preferring talle

SUBMITTER: Madsen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6953592 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature