Habitat use and foraging parameters of breeding Skylarks indicate no seasonal decrease in food availability in heterogeneous farmland ...

• Main Authors: Püttmanns, Manuel, Böttges, Laura, Filla, Tim, Lehmann, Franziska, Martens, Annika Sophie, Siegel, Friederike, Sippel, Anna, Von Bassi, Marlene, Balkenhol, Niko, Waltert, Matthias, Gottschalk, Eckhard
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2021
• Subjects: FOS Biological sciences; Alauda arvensis; Eurasian Skylark
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bg79cnpc2; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.bg79cnpc2

Reduced food availability during chick raising is a major driver of farmland bird declines. For the Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis), food availability is determined by various factors (i.e., arthropod abundance/diversity, accessibility of the vegetation, distance to foraging sites). In modern farmland, it is supposed to decrease over the breeding season due to less penetrable vegetation. We explored foraging habitat selection by chick-raising Skylarks with a focus on the seasonal dynamics of habitat use and food availability. We investigated i) habitat selection concerning prey biomass/diversity, vegetation cover, and distance to foraging sites, ii) the overall and seasonal habitat use, and iii) seasonal developments of foraging parameters (e.g., the feeding frequency) as indicators of food availability. We collected data on foraging habitats and foraging parameters of chick-raising Skylark pairs at 51 nests from a Central European population in 2018 and 2019. Prey biomass/diversity and vegetation cover ...