Context

Small woody features (SWF; tree lines and small woods) in agricultural landscapes provide a substitute for forest conditions for a wide range of species and a suitable edge habitat for ecotone species. The importance of SWF for biodiversity is usually inferred from presence or abundance data for small animals. Although large animals, due to their lower density are less likely to be attributed with SWF, they may depend on these areas to effectively utilize the agricultural landscape matrix.

Objectives

We followed movements of three avian predator species (northern goshawk, common buzzard, and lesser spotted eagle) in the breeding and post-breeding season to assess their dependence on SWF in agricultural landscapes and to determine the characteristics of woods influencing each species.

Methods

We compared time spent flying and perching, where perching sites were classified as open space, forest interior, forest edge, and SWF. Next, the relative importance of SWF and forest edges, as well as specific characteristics of each habitat, were evaluated using resource selection functions.

Results

All species spent most of the daytime perching, and preferentially utilized SWF and forest edges. Buzzards and eagles were not influenced by the characteristics of SWF, but goshawks preferred relatively large, dense patches.

Conclusions

We conclude that SWF are crucial for exploitation of agricultural landscapes by avian predators by providing suitable perching sites for foraging. We also detected variation in the quality of perching sites, suggesting that for some species (like the goshawk), artificial perching sites cannot compensate for a lack of SWF.

中文翻译：

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猛禽的运动揭示了树线，小树林和森林边缘在农业景观中的重要性

语境

农业景观中的小木本特征（SWF；林木和小木本）为各种树种提供了森林条件的替代品，并为过渡带物种提供了合适的边缘生境。SWF对于生物多样性的重要性通常可以从小型动物的存在或丰度数据中得出。尽管大型动物由于其较低的密度而不太可能归因于SWF，但它们可能依赖于这些区域来有效地利用农业景观矩阵。

目标

我们在繁殖和繁殖后季节追踪了三种鸟类捕食者（北苍鹰，普通秃鹰和斑点鹰）的运动，以评估它们在农业景观中对SWF的依赖性，并确定影响每种物种的木材的特性。

方法

我们比较了飞行和栖息所花费的时间，其中栖息地分为开放空间，森林内部，森林边缘和SWF。接下来，使用资源选择功能评估了SWF和森林边缘的相对重要性以及每个栖息地的特定特征。

结果

所有物种都在白天大部分时间里栖息，并且优先利用SWF和森林边缘。秃鹰和老鹰不受SWF特性的影响，但是苍鹰更喜欢相对较大，密集的斑块。

结论

我们得出的结论是，SWF通过提供合适的栖息场所进行觅食，对于禽肉捕食者对农业景观的开发至关重要。我们还检测到栖息地质量的变化，这表明对于某些物种（如苍鹰），人工栖息地无法弥补SWF的不足。