The State of Europe's Common Birds 2008 - European Bird Census ...

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The State of Europe’s Common Birds 2008Populations of Eurasian LinnetCarduelis cannabina declinedmoderately in the 1980s and thenagain after 1990. This farmland speciessuffers from changes in farmingpractices leading to shortage ofseed supply in winter and destructionof nesting habitat like hedges andsmall tree patches in farmland.Photo by Z. Tunka (birdphoto.cz)indicators may well differ slightly. In presentingdifferent indicators, it is important to explainspecies selection and define the purpose of eachindicator.The SEBI 2010 (Streamlining European 2010Biodiversity Indicators) project, a pan-Europeaninitiative led by the European EnvironmentAgency (EEA), incorporated the wild birdindicator in the set of indicators to assessprogress towards the European target of haltingbiodiversity loss by 2010 (Gregory et al. 2008).Other international initiatives and organisationsuse the wild bird indicators and underlying dataproduced by the PECBMS too. Examples includethe OECD, the Core Set of Indicators of theEEA, the Living Planet Index (http://assets.panda.org/downloads/living_planet_report_2008.pdf) and several others. The Europeanapproach developed and promoted by thePECBMS is also beginning to inspire othersimilar initiatives in other continents; recently,for example, in the USA where the first wild birdindicators have been published in spring 2009(http://www.stateofthebirds.org/pdf_files/State_of_the_Birds_2009.pdf). The European wild birdindicators also paved the way for thedevelopment of the so called ‘Global World BirdIndex Project’, an RSPB and BirdLifeInternational initiative, seeking to motivate,encourage and support bird populationmonitoring around the globe through the 2010Biodiversity Indicators Partnership Project(http://www.twentyten.net).Wild bird indicators have been adopted atnational level in at least 15 European countriestoo. In Sweden, for example, the government hasadopted 16 environmental objectives, four ofwhich are underpinned by common bird indices(http://miljomal.nu). France is using anindicator system where species are grouped byhabitat and specialisation (http://www.mnhn.fr/vigie-nature/STOC_indicateurs.htm). In theNetherlands, a number of indicators for manykinds of habitats and species groups have beendeveloped and the government reports on themannually, although, as yet, they do not haveformal status (www.natuurcompendium.nl).In the UK, the common bird indicator is a partof an official set of high profile, ‘Framework’indicators and the UK government and itsagencies have pledged to reverse the decline offarmland and woodland birds by 2020. Similarframeworks are being developed in otherEuropean countries, too (Gregory et al. 2008).20
The State of Europe’s Common Birds 2008Furthermore, the development and use of wildbird indicators in Europe has triggered moreintensive research into the potential drivingforces behind population trends of species anddevelopment of species action plans, asillustrated by examples from the UK and theNetherlands. While most of these examplespoint to successful progress and the intelligentuse of wild bird indicators to promote informedconservation and land management policies,there is a need for stronger support andleadership from the EU and nationalgovernments in securing the underlying dataand in indicator production and use. Suchassistance would allow targets for biodiversityconservation to be more tightly defined; suchtargets could then be regularly reviewed, andintegrated recovery plans could be developed.Monitoring data can be also used in research.It is desirable to use monitoring data to develophypotheses on trends using explorative analysis,or to test hypotheses on large-scale drivers ofpopulation changes. Publications in scientificpapers also help to disseminate information onspecies’ trends and methodology. This bringstransparency and credibility to the projectproducts. Numerous examples of scientific papersusing monitoring data at national level can befound in the literature, and some papers clearlylinked to PECBMS European outputs can beidentified too. The publication of scientific paperslinked to PECBMS started well before the officialstart of the scheme in 2002. For example, theresults of a pilot study paved the methodologicalroad to routine production of European speciestrends and indices (Van Strien et al. 2001). Thisinnovative paper describes clearly a method hownational species indices can be combined intomulti-national ones. The national species indicesshould be ideally calculated using log-linearregression, which allows for plot turnover. Suchcalculations were made easy by the software toolTRIM (www.ebcc.info; Pannekoek and VanStrien 2001). A further conceptual paper waspublished in 2005 (Gregory et al. 2005), whichpresented the approach of PECBMS indeveloping biodiversity indicators using datafrom common bird monitoring schemes.This described a methodology by which dataPhoto by T. Bělka (birdphoto.cz)The Black RedstartPhoenicurus ochruros populationremains stable in both longandshort-term across Europe.Its exploitation of nesting sitesin urban areas since the 19th centuryseems to be successful and this recentlycolonised habitat still provides suitableconditions for breeding.21
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