Rural depopulation and recent landscape changes in a Mediterranean region: Consequences to the breeding avifauna

We studied the vegetational and avifaunistic changes following rural depopulation in an area covering 2,600 ha north of Montpellier (Southern France). The study area is covered by a mosaic of Mediterranean habitats that includes cultivation, grasslands, shrublands, and woodlands and is representative of the natural features present and of the human usage practiced so far in this part of the Mediterranean. We sampled the vegetation and the bird fauna in the same 193 census plots in 1978 and in 1992. At both the habitat and landscape scales the cover of woody plants increased significantly. Open habitats tend to disappear. As a consequence the abundance of open-habitat bird species decreased significantly whereas the abundance of forest birds increased significantly. These changes favor a pool of forest species widespread in western Europe and reduce habitat availability for open habitat and shrubland species. Many of the latter are Mediterranean species whose distribution in Western Europe could become reduced under current landscape dynamics. Our observation of more woodlands and their typical birds and of less open habitats and their associated avifauna is not consistent with the traditional worry shown by the public and the managers about the regression of forests and woodlands in the Northern Mediterranean as a consequence of fire.