Reduced biodiversity in modernised villages: a conflict between sustainable development goals

1. Despite large conservation efforts to halt the loss of farmland biodiversity in Europe, negative population trends are still observed, especially for common species. Old villages and human settlements are biodiversity hotspots and important breeding habitats for farmland birds, but recent requirements for energy saving measures and improved living comfort have changed their architecture and habitats. Consequently, modernisation of villages may negatively affect bird diversity due to the loss of nesting and foraging sites.

2. We investigated how the abundance and diversity of birds breeding in 104 Polish villages varied in relation to the degree of modernisation as estimated by the proportion of new and renovated homesteads.

3. Abundance of building-nesting species, but not tree-nesting species, declined by 50% across a gradient of old to highly modernised villages. The contribution of new vs. renovated houses to the observed decline was similar.

4. Applications and synthesi...