Habitat selection of foraging male Great Snipes on floodplain meadows: importance of proximity to the lek, vegetation cover and bare ground

Drainage of wetlands and agricultural intensification has resulted in
serious biodiversity loss in Europe, not least in grasslands.
Consequently, many meadow birds have drastically declined, and the
habitats they select for breeding currently rely on land management.
However, the selection of habitats maintained by agriculture may
contribute to reduced fitness and thus remain maladaptive for individuals,
which makes conservation challenging. An understanding of the
relationships between species’ habitat selection, food supply and land
management in the context of species’ behaviour is therefore crucial for
conservation. Lowland populations of Great Snipe Gallinago media are
currently declining at a moderate rate, causing a conservation concern. We
examined the daytime site selection (assumed as foraging sites) and food
supply of radiotracked Great Snipe males breeding on a floodplain in NE
Poland. Foraging sites were classified at micro- and macro-scale levels
using the logistic regression in a use–availability design. On the
microscale level, males selected moderate sward height and density, and a
large amount of bare ground patches, and the importance of these increased
as the breeding season progressed. On the macro-scale level, these
conditions were associated with (1) meadows mown twice per season and
grazed thereafter (associated with the most abundant food resources –
earthworms) and (2) extensively managed pastures, suggesting the
importance of grazing. Abandoned or late-mown meadows under
agri-environmental schemes (AES) were avoided by foraging males. However,
parcels with delayed mowing offer safe breeding sites for females nesting
close to leks, unlike land-use types preferred by foraging males, which
may act as an ecological trap. Effective conservation of Great Snipes on
floodplain meadows requires precisely targeted AES schemes that will
provide a mosaic of intensive and extensive land-use patches in the
vicinity of identified leks.