Abstract
Open habitat bird species of Southern Massif Central (France) are highly dependent of traditional land uses such as extensive livestock farming. These practices have however largely declined other the last decades. Despite the high conservation value of these species at the national level, little is known about their recent trends in this region. In this study, we aimed to monitor changes in the occurrence of bird species of southern Massif Central. Our study relied on 167 point-counts repeated exactly at the same locations in 1995 and 2017. We specifically focused on four target species related to open habitat: the Tawny Pipit, the Ortolan Bunting, the Woodlark, and the Dartford Warbler. We observed a strong negative trend for species strongly associated with open habitat, while forest and generalist species showed stable or positive trends. This study is the first to quantify trends in bird occurrence in this study area based on repeatable and standardized methods. Alarming trends observed for open habitat specialist species call for the urgent need to implement conservation actions for thèse species and their habitats throughout the study area