Monitoring the impact of the conservation measures in agricultural environments

Monitoring allows to assess the direct or indirect impact of the conservation measures: supporting the farmers into carrying out biodiversity-positive practices, supporting the breeders into managing the parasitic risk in an ecosensible way or rehabilitating habitats suitable for the little bustard for species of community importance targeted by agricultural environments:

• The little bustard
• The woodlark
• The tawny pipit
• The lesser mouse-eared bat
• The great rhinolophe

Little bustard

• The COGard is in charge of monitoring both species targeted by passerines: the woodlark and the tawny pipit. The “BACI” (Before And After Impact) shall be applied. It consists in reaching a pre-work initial state before monitoring each managerial impact. Yearly counts shall be made. Ornithological monitoring shall be made according to two methods:
• Counting each year the singing males in all the St-Chaptes plain.
• Finding the exact number and location of singing little bustard males in the patches where suitable habitats have been recreated for the species by assessing the management measures before, during and after (“BACI” principle: Before And After Impact)

Woodlark and tawny pipit

• The COGard is in charge of monitoring both species targeted by passerines: the woodlark and the tawny pipit. The “BACI” (Before And After Impact) shall be applied. It consists in reaching a pre-work initial state before monitoring each managerial impact.

Insects

• The Euzière Ecologists shall monitor entomologically the areas in which specific management measures have been taken by the farmers. The Orthopterans shall be the studied insect group (grasshoppers, crickets). They indeed form a big part of the diet of the targeted birds and chiropterans, especially during their breeding season. Orthopterans react swiftly to habitat structure changes, and as they are easily identifiable by their aspect and songs, and their sheer abundance shall provide a sufficient amount of data that may be processed statistically.
• The Occitanian Natural Spaces Conservatory shall be in charge of assessing the impact of the reasonable parasitic risk management measures taken upon the coprophagous fauna and the associated ecosystemic services. The goal shall be measuring the coprophagous insect population living with breeders who have modified their parasitic risk management practices, based on methodologies developed for the purpose of the ScaraB’obs program. The assessment of the organic matter decay and recycling shall consist in quantifying the disintegration of cattle dung.