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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2022

The little bustard around the world: distribution, global conservation status, threats and population trends

Résumé

The little bustard is distributed over an extensive Palearctic range from north-western Africa and Iberia to central Asia, encompassing France, Italy, southern Russia and the Middle East. Over such a vast region, it occupies natural grass steppes, pastured grasslands and cereal farmland, avoiding extreme climatic conditions. Nowadays, two main distribution sub-ranges persist: a western one comprising the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy and Morocco, and an eastern one encompassing mainly southern Russia and Kazakhstan, but reaching north-western China. Historically abundant in Europe and northern Africa, it has strongly declined over the second half of the twentieth century in most of its former range, becoming extinct in many countries. Such regression is associated with breeding habitat transformation and degradation following agricultural intensification, although other threats such as former legal hunting, poaching and collision with powerlines can also be blamed. In the last two decades, the species has severely declined in what was considered its population stronghold, the Iberian Peninsula. However, there is evidence of recent population growth in the eastern range, which may have become the species’ current stronghold with more than half the world’s population. This situation requires the development of an integrated global strategy for the conservation of the species, as well as more attention to habitat and population changes in the eastern range than paid hitherto.
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Dates et versions

hal-03048114 , version 1 (09-12-2020)

Identifiants

Citer

M.B. Morales, Vincent Bretagnolle. The little bustard around the world: distribution, global conservation status, threats and population trends. Bretagnolle V., Traba J., Morales M. B. (eds). Little Bustard Ecology and Conservation, 39 (5), Springer, pp.81-100, 2022, 978-3-030-84901-6. ⟨10.1007/978-3-030-84902-3_4⟩. ⟨hal-03048114⟩
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