Effects on Birds of the Conversion of Savannah to Farmland in the Sahel: Habitats are Lost, But Not Everywhere and Not For All Species

Many migratory bird species, several of which are in severe decline, and African residents spend the northern winter in the Sahel, by nature a huge savannah, half of which has been converted into farmland. We analyse the impact of such large-scale changes on birds. On average, woody cover is 38% lower on farmland than on savannah. More critically, farmers have drastically changed the vegetation communities of their farmland. In the arid and semi-arid zone, they partly removed bird-rich trees such as Umbrella Thorn Acacia tortilis and Desert Date Balanites aegyptiaca, yet further south they created a richer bird habitat by replacing the original woody species by Winter Thorn Faidherbia albida, a preferred tree species for Afro-Palearctic migrants (but less so for Afro-tropical residents). Still further south, two bird-poor trees, Shea Tree Vitellaria paradoxa and African Locust Bean Tree Parkia biglobosa, dominate farmland, causing birds, mainly Afro-tropical residents, to lose habitat. As a consequence of farming, arboreal migrants are confronted with habitat degradation in the northern arid zone and in the southern humid zone, but face more favourable wintering conditions in the sub-humid central zone. Ground-foraging birds are more abundant on savannah than on farmland; 24 bird species from this group, including three wheatear species and many residents, are more than twice as abundant on savannah. Conversion of savannah into farmland has mixed outcomes for ground-foraging birds, but were generally negative except for five species (including Western Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava) which were more than twice as abundant on farmland than on savannah. Thus, the conversion of savannah into farmland represents a loss for many but not all bird species.