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Changes in land cover drove the recent range expansion of a tropical farmland bird

Luana Jéssica Ferreira,Paulo André Tavares,Filipe C. R. Cunha,R. Solar,Leonardo Esteves Lopes

Published 2025 in Oikos

ABSTRACT

Several bird species associated with agricultural landscapes in the Palearctic and in the Nearctic (i.e. farmland birds) have been experiencing severe population declines since the 1970s, mainly due to habitat loss driven by agricultural intensification. Contrastingly, many farmland birds in the Neotropics are expanding their ranges in recent years. Reconstructing the history of range change of these birds can provide insights into the ecological dynamics of expansion/retraction of bird populations in agricultural lands. In this study we investigated the temporal dynamics of the geographical distribution of a tropical farmland bird, the lined seedeater Sporophila lineola. We used data from the literature, zoological collections, and community science platforms to access the species' range in South America at different timeframes. Additionally, we used historical maps to investigate the relationship between the occurrence of the species and the type of land cover at different timeframes. Our findings suggest that lined seedeaters, which were originally restricted to part of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, expanded their range to southeastern and southern Brazil during the last century. We propose that the lined seedeater was originally associated with naturally disturbed habitats, having expanded its range over human disturbed habitats, benefiting from recent changes in land cover. Documenting range expansion in lined seedeaters allowed us to better understand how changes in land cover can favour opportunistic species into their successful occupation of man‐made habitats.

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