Research on bird conservation and Natura 2000: a review

As birds are a taxonomic group of major interest in the EU Directives, this review investigates the characteristics of the scientific research dedicated to birds in relation to Natura 2000, focusing on the scale, distribution, aims and main attributes of the publications and the targeted bird species. Our review focuses on 169 peer-reviewed articles, published between 1995 and 2019. Most studies concern terrestrial habitats, particularly wetlands. The terrestrial Mediterranean biogeographical region and marine Atlantic region have the greatest number of publications, while Spain is the country with the highest number of related articles. The number of publications is correlated to Natura 2000 coverage at both country and biogeographical region level, but it is not significantly correlated to the distribution surface area of the studied bird species or to the coverage of each habitat type within Natura 2000 sites. Bird species are studied mainly at a community or single species level (mainly Passerines), with focus on their distribution and occurrence. Both Annex I and non-Annex I bird species are examined in the literature, with most species having decreasing population trends at the European scale. Future research on bird conservation and Natura 2000 should focus on habitats that have received less attention despite their important role in a changing future, such as the alpine and urban types. Moreover, future studies should address those species for which status and trends are still not thoroughly investigated. Finally, since there are still some knowledge gaps about the Natura 2000 implementation, it would be of importance to enhance the research efforts about conservation status and conservation effectiveness in relation to the network.