Riparian forests and open landscapes in the West African Sahel are key wintering habitats for the threatened European Turtle-dove (Streptopelia turtur)

Abstract

The European Turtle-dove Streptopelia turtur is globally threatened, with populations experiencing substantial declines in recent years. On the breeding grounds, the habitat associations and main causes of decline have been identified, but little is known about the species across its Sahelian non-breeding (wintering) areas. To identify environmental correlates of its wintering distribution, a priority action in the International Species Action Plan, we fitted 42 birds with satellite devices on the breeding grounds in France and the UK between 2012 and 2016. We related the best accuracy class locations of those 14 birds reaching the wintering grounds to environmental data derived from satellite remote sensing at a landscape scale and core areas scale. The tagged birds spent the winters in Senegal, The Gambia, Mali and Mauritania. Eleven showed a distinct southward shift in home-range between early and late winter, moving from areas with low rainfall the preceding summer (< 600 mm) to areas with higher summer rainfall and which had a broader range of normalized difference vegetation index values. In both time periods and at both landscape and core areas scales, birds were consistently associated with proximity to water sources in a mixed landscape of open forests, shrubs, natural grasslands and croplands: a typical mix of habitats in the Sahelian and Sudanian-Sahelian seasonally flooded basins with riparian forests of Acacia nilotica. These persistent habitat associations throughout the winter are likely to reflect individuals tracking resources required for food, water, and places to roost and shelter. Increasing human-related pressure on this landscape may well be reducing the extent of available habitat and could be a contributory factor in the decline of this species. Conservation and regeneration of riparian forests and floodplains could offer significant benefits to biodiversity and potentially contribute to the livelihoods and well-being of local communities.