Widespread local house-sparrow extinctions.
House-sparrow populations have declined sharply in Western Europe in recent decades, but the reasons for this decline have yet to be identified, despite intense public interest in the matter. Here we use a combination of field experimentation, genetic analysis and demographic data to show that a reduction in winter food supply caused by agricultural intensification is probably the principal explanation for the widespread local extinctions of rural house-sparrow populations in southern England. We show that farmland populations exhibit fine-level genetic structuring and that some populations are unable to sustain themselves (sinks), whereas others act as sources.
Farmland Bird Group, Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. david.hole@linacre.ox.ac.uk
David G
DG
Hole
Mark J
MJ
Whittingham
Richard B
RB
Bradbury
Guy Q A
GQ
Anderson
Patricia L M
PL
Lee
Jeremy D
JD
Wilson
John R
JR
Krebs
D000383:Agriculture / Q000639:trends; D000818:Animals; D017753:Ecosystem; D004739:England; D005523:Food Supply; D005787:Gene Frequency; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012621:Seasons; D020308:Songbirds / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D015996:Survival Rate