Hugging the hedges: Might agri-environment manipulations affect landscape permeability for hedgehogs?

• Published in: Biological conservation Vol. 176; pp. 109 - 116
• Main Authors: Moorhouse, Tom P., Palmer, Stephen C.F., Travis, Justin M.J., Macdonald, David W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Agri-environment scheme; Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions; Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; Erinaceus europaeus; Farming; Farmlands; Farms; Field margin; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General agroecology; General agroecology. Agricultural and farming systems. Agricultural development. Rural area planning. Landscaping; General agronomy. Plant production; General aspects. Techniques; Generalities. Agricultural and farming systems. Agricultural development; Habitats; Hedge; Hedgerows; Individual-based modelling; Landscape permeability; Landscapes; Lowlands; Mathematical models; Methods and techniques (sampling, tagging, trapping, modelling...); Parks, reserves, wildlife conservation. Endangered species: population survey and restocking; Pasture; Stochastic Movement Simulator; Synecology; Terrestrial ecosystems; British Isles; Europe; Stochastic Movement Simulator; Hedge; Individual-based modelling; Pasture; Erinaceus europaeus; Field margin; Agri-environment scheme; Landscape permeability; Landscape; Ecology; Permeability; Modeling; Agroecology; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Field edge; Manipulation; Insectivora; Agri-environmental measure; Environmental protection
• ISSN: 0006-3207; 1873-2917
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2014.05.015

•Semi-natural agricultural habitats, and habitat connectivity, have declined since the 1950s.•We modelled how European hedgehog movement sizes relate to hedge, pasture and margin abundances.•Doubling hedge abundance from 25% (the current value) to 50%, increased hedgehog movement sizes.•Increasing hedge abundance to 75%, or increasing pasture and margin abundance, had little effect.•Agri-environment scheme work to double hedge lengths may aid hedgehog population connectivity. Semi-natural agricultural habitats have declined in northern Europe since the 1950s, to the detriment of habitat connectivity and biodiversity. European agri-environmental schemes to restore them should target the habitats most likely to remedy these impacts. We employed a stochastic individual-based simulation model to predict movements of a model species, the European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), across a series of virtual landscapes – digitised from a typical UK lowland agricultural area – in which the abundance of hedgerow, pasture fields and field margin had been manipulated according to a factorial design. The primary landscape determinant of distances that model hedgehogs travelled was the percentage of field boundaries that were hedgerow: doubling this from the status quo resulted in an additional 13% of individuals moving 500m, 25% 1000m, 35% 1500m and 51% 2000m. Trebling the percentage of hedge yielded no additional benefit over doubling it (mean additional percentage 0.6%). Doubling the landscape percentage of pastures resulted in a 1% increase in model individuals moving 500m and 1000m, but decreases for 1500m and 2000m (−2% and −4%, respectively). Increasing the percentage of hedged fields that also had field margins led to decreases of −1% to −8% in individuals moving any distance. Agri-environmental scheme options to reinstate or repair hedges that double their percentage in lowland farmland would enhance population connectivity for European hedgehogs. Further work should extend these individual-based models to representative sets of species to explore the extent to which management for one species may benefit others.