Farmland biodiversity have experienced a steep decline over recent decades. Various conservation measures, including EU agri-environmental schemes (AES), have been designed to prevent further biodiversity loss. Despite the AES were criticized for limited benefits for biodiversity, the existing conservation evidence demonstrated some AES, such as seed-rich strips (SRS), can have a positive effect on overall biodiversity. However, evidence of the effectiveness of SRS during winter is largely missing in Eastern Europe or it is based on single-species evaluations. In our study, we investigate the effects of SRS on several taxa typical of the farmland (i.e., farmland birds, European hare, roe deer and small mammals) during winter, when these species may suffer from a lack of food sources. More specifically, we evaluated the effect of spatial location (hedges, forests, and open fields), time in the season (early and late winter), and area (Single Large or Several Small analysis, i.e., “SLOSS analysis”) of SRS on species richness and abundance of birds and mammals. SRS showed higher species richness and abundance than control transects, except for roe deer. The largest differences in abundance and species richness of farmland birds between the SRS and the controls were found in the fields. The highest abundance of European hare and small mammals were found in SRS located in the fields. Ordination analysis indicated that several bird species preferred SRS. Moreover, different birds occurred in strips adjacent to open fields, hedges, and forest, indicating that the landscape context of SRS can affect its use by different bird species. We found a significant decrease in the abundance of farmland birds and declining farmland species during late winter in the SRS, but not in the controls, suggesting the SRS may be depleted of seeds towards the end of winter. Finally, the SLOSS analysis indicated there was no clear difference in species richness between small-to-large and large-to-small strips accumulation, but the pooled abundance of all birds and mammals was generally higher at a few large rather than many small patches of the same cumulative size. Our findings suggest that SRS are a simple and cost-effective measure for farmland biodiversity conservation. Even relatively small SRS are used by many species and therefore should be promoted. SRS careful planning (e.g., location of SRS within the landscape and the choice of seed mixtures) can improve their effectiveness for biodiversity conservation.

近几十年来，农田生物多样性急剧下降。包括欧盟农业环境计划 (AES) 在内的各种保护措施旨在防止生物多样性进一步丧失。尽管 AES 因对生物多样性的益处有限而受到批评，但现有的保护证据表明，一些 AES，例如富含种子的条带 (SRS)，可以对整体生物多样性产生积极影响。然而，在东欧很大程度上缺乏 SRS 在冬季有效的证据，或者它是基于单一物种的评估。在我们的研究中，我们调查了冬季 SRS 对农田典型分类群（即农田鸟类、欧洲野兔、狍子和小型哺乳动物）的影响，这些物种可能缺乏食物来源。进一步来说，我们评估了 SRS 的空间位置（树篱、森林和开阔地）、季节时间（初冬和晚冬）和面积（单个大或几个小分析，即“SLOSS 分析”）对物种丰富度的影响以及丰富的鸟类和哺乳动物。除狍外，SRS 显示出比对照样带更高的物种丰富度和丰度。在田间发现了 SRS 和对照之间农田鸟类丰度和物种丰富度的最大差异。在位于田间的 SRS 中发现了最丰富的欧洲野兔和小型哺乳动物。排序分析表明，几种鸟类更喜欢 SRS。此外，不同的鸟类出现在与开阔的田野、树篱和森林相邻的地带，表明 SRS 的景观环境会影响不同鸟类对其的利用。我们发现冬末 SRS 中农田鸟类的丰度显着减少，农田物种减少，但在对照中没有，这表明 SRS 可能在冬季结束时耗尽种子。最后，SLOSS 分析表明，小到大和大到小条带积累之间的物种丰富度没有明显差异，但所有鸟类和哺乳动物的汇总丰度通常在少数大斑块而不是许多小斑块上更高相同的累积大小。我们的研究结果表明，SRS 是一种简单且具有成本效益的农田生物多样性保护措施。即使是相对较小的 SRS 也被许多物种使用，因此应该推广。SRS 仔细规划（例如，