Agricultural landscapes are characterized by a variety of habitats resulting from man-made transformations of the natural environment. Progressing agricultural intensification is leading to a reduction in natural and semi-natural habitats, resulting in turn in a loss of biodiversity. In farmland, natural habitats such as field margins, hedgerows, and meadows are progressively declining or being transformed. There is a need for regionally adjusted schemes that balance agricultural production and biodiversity conservation due to strong differences even within one country. We present a potential tool that can mitigate biodiversity loss in farmland ecosystems. In this study, we compared transects on three different habitat types: unused railway lines, dirt road verges and fields in terms of overall, farmland and open land bird species abundance, richness and Shannon-Wiener diversity index as well as community composition in intensively managed agricultural landscapes. We predicted that 1) bird abundance, species richness and diversity would be greater in vegetation structure along unused railway lines due to their spontaneous vegetation character than in other habitats, and 2) bird community composition would be different between three habitat types (unused railway lines, farmland roads and transects in farming areas). Our findings demonstrated that habitats along unused railway lines provide a suitable environment for farmland birds, increasing bird diversity in the agricultural landscape and playing a wider role in biodiversity conservation. Vegetation structures along unused railway lines may act as alternative refuges for birds in each season, providing food resources, nesting, shelter, perching, singing, and resting sites as well as constitute a kind of ecological corridor running within an intensively used agricultural landscape.

农业景观的特点是由于自然环境的人为改造而产生的各种栖息地。不断推进的农业集约化导致自然和半自然栖息地的减少，进而导致生物多样性的丧失。在农田中，田地边缘、灌木篱笆和草地等自然栖息地正在逐渐减少或被改造。由于即使在一个国家内也存在很大差异，因此需要区域调整计划来平衡农业生产和生物多样性保护。我们提出了一种可以减轻农田生态系统中生物多样性丧失的潜在工具。在这项研究中，我们比较了三种不同栖息地类型的横断面：未使用的铁路线、土路边缘和田野的总体、农田和开阔地鸟类物种丰度，集约化管理的农业景观中的丰富度和香农-维纳多样性指数以及群落组成。我们预测 1) 未使用铁路线沿线植被结构中的鸟类丰度、物种丰富度和多样性由于其自发植被特征而高于其他栖息地，2) 三种栖息地类型（未使用铁路线）之间的鸟类群落组成不同、农田道路和农区横断面）。我们的研究结果表明，未使用的铁路沿线的栖息地为农田鸟类提供了合适的环境，增加了农业景观中的鸟类多样性，并在生物多样性保护中发挥了更广泛的作用。未使用的铁路沿线的植被结构可以作为每个季节鸟类的替代避难所，提供食物资源、筑巢、