Agricultural threats to aquatic insects and farmland birds in Prairie Canada

Aerial insectivores, a diverse guild of birds that consume flying insects on the wing, are exhibiting large scale declines in their breeding ranges of North America. In addition, many granivorous farmland (grassland) birds are also showing steep losses. Although complex factors have been implicated, one principal hypothesis is that declines are greatest where there is more intensive agriculture. Landscape simplification, wetland loss and heavy reliance on pesticides and other agrochemicals has been ongoing with large scale shifts in agricultural land use practices can indirectly lead to reductions in insect prey, habitat suitability and toxicity to birds that are directly exposed to the pesticides. Collectively, these changes are believed to have exerted negative effects on insects, insect consumers and farmland bird species over vast geographies. This research aims to evaluate the processes, chemicals, locations and species that are most affected to help reverse declines.