Habitat selection and space use
Résumé
This review provides support for the role of both macro- and micro-scale factors driving habitat selection by the little bustard. At a regional scale, little bustard distribution shows a clear relationship with temperature-related variables, but also a strong conspecific attraction and a tendency to philopatry at a local scale, making it especially vulnerable to climate change and related habitat changes. At the macrohabitat scale, little bustard distribution is strongly associated with long-term fallows, but also with new fallows and extensive pastures (grasslands in general) as alternative habitats, at least in a significant part of its range in Western Europe. At the microhabitat scale, little bustards select specific characteristics of plant structure due to trade-offs between predator surveillance, food requirements and sexual constraints. This microhabitat selection seems to be independent of landscape composition. Breeding males select areas both suitable for courtship activity and with resources for nesting females. Breeding females select habitat apparently on the basis of two main constraints: the need for shelter and anti-predator surveillance, and the need for food for themselves and their young. Thus, they prefer sites with high plant cover and density, and with high litter and green weed cover. This species therefore has a need for habitat diversity, preferably within a dry cereal farmland mosaic.