The recent declines of farmland bird populations in Britain: an appraisal of causal factors and conservation actions

In this paper, the main aspects of agricultural intensification that have led to population declines in farmland birds over the past 50 years are reviewed, together with the current state of knowledge, and the effects of recent conservation actions. For each of 30 declining species, attention is focused on: (1) the external causes of population declines, (2) the demographic mechanisms and (3) experimental tests of proposed external causal factors, together with the outcome of (4) specific conservation measures and (5) agri‐environment schemes. Although each species has responded individually to particular aspects of agricultural change, certain groups of species share common causal factors. For example,…