What makes more sense when farming wheat – strips of wildflowers along fields or organic farming? Both options provide financial support via the European Union as environmentally friendly and sustainable farming practices. An international research team, including researchers from the University of Göttingen, has now compared the ecological and economic benefits of these two farming methods in fields planted with winter wheat. They found that both measures increased biodiversity by 20 to 30 percent compared to conventionally farmed wheat fields. From an economic perspective, the organic fields were the most profitable. Although yields were only half as high as those of conventionally farmed wheat, profits were one and a half times higher. The results were published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Females travel long distances presumably to mate with multiple males: Long-distance mate-searching within a breeding season had only ever been seen in males of species where females do all the parenting. Female Eurasian Dotterels appear to behave similarly, visiting a median of three sites in a season, up to ~1,000 km apart.

Populations may be more connected than we thought: Females move between breeding areas across a broader area than field research typically covers, with implications for how populations connect.

New questions raised: Tracking shows where the females go, but not what they do. Answering that will need studies combining tracking with field observations of behaviour.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) featured prominently in the news during 2020 as it took the lives of millions of birds across the globe. While the worst seems to be behind us, population-level effects are just now emerging. A new study published in the Journal of Raptor Research, titled “Rapid Decline of Nesting Peregrine Falcons in the San Francisco Bay Region of California Synchronous with an Outbreak of H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza,” reports an alarming decrease in the number of occupied territories for a population of Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus) that has maintained a longstanding presence in coastal California. As top predators, peregrines show warning signs when the health of their food web is jeopardized. They indicated the threat of DDT to wildlife in the 1960’s, and they are once again sounding the alarm to those who know where to look.