Non-crop features and heterogeneity mediate overwintering bird diversity in agricultural landscapes of Southwest China

Farmland birds are of conservation concerns around the world. In China, conservation management has focused primarily on natural habitats, whereas little attention has been given to agricultural landscapes. Although agricultural land use is intensive in China, environmental heterogeneity can be highly variable in some regions due to variations in crop and non-crop elements within a landscape. We examined how non-crop heterogeneity, crop heterogeneity and non-crop features (non-crop vegetation and water body such as open water) influenced species richness and abundance of all birds as well as three functional groups (woodland species, agricultural land species and agricultural wetland species) in the paddy-dominated landscapes of Erhai water basin situated in Northwest Yunnan, China. Birds, crop, and non-crop vegetation surveys in twenty 1 km × 1 km landscape plots were conducted during the winter season (from 2014 to 2015). The results revealed that bird community compositions were best...