Post-Soviet Land-Use Change and Conservation of Avian Biodiversity Across the Eurasian Steppe Belt

Johannes Kamp Post-Soviet land-use change and conservation of avian biodiversity across the Eurasian steppe belt Münster 2012 Landschaftsökologie Post-Soviet land-use change and conservation of avian biodiversity across the Eurasian steppe belt Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Naturwissenschaften im Fachbereich Geowissen- schaften der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster Vorgelegt von Johannes Kamp Februar 2012 Dekan: Prof. Dr. Hans Kerp Erster Gutachter Prof. Dr. Norbert Hölzel Zweiter Gutachter: Dr. Paul F. Donald Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: Tag der Promotion: Table of contents Chapter 1 – Introduction 1. Background and state of research 11 2. Study areas 17 3. Background and aims of the study 20 4. Structure of the thesis 21 Chapter 2 – Post-Soviet agricultural change predicts future declines after recent recovery in Eurasian steppe bird populations Summary 25 1. Introduction 27 2. Methods 29 3. Results 33 4. Discussion 38 Acknowledgements 41 Appendix 41 Chapter 3 – Niche separation of larks (Alaudidae) on the drylands of the former Soviet Union: Differential impacts of agricultural abandonment and changing grazing patterns Summary 45 1. Introduction 47 2. Material and methods 49 3. Results 53 4. Discussion 58 5. Conclusions 61 Acknowledgements 61 Appendices 62 Chapter 4 – Post-Soviet steppe management causes pronounced synanthropy in the globally threatened Sociable Lapwing Vanellus gregarius Summary 71 1. Introduction 72 2. Methods 73 3. Results 77 4. Discussion 81 Acknowledgements 85 Chapter 5 – Population size, breeding performance and habitat selection of the Black-winged Pratincole Glareola nordmanni Summary 89 1. Introduction 90 2. Methods 91 3. Results 95 4. Discussion 98 Acknowledgements 101 Chapter 6 – Conclusions and Outlook 103 Acknowledgements 109 References 113 Summaries Executive summary 129 Zusammenfassung 131 Краткое содержание 133 Curriculum Vitae 139 CHAPTER 1 Introduction chapter 1 – Introduction 10 Introduction – chapter 1 1. Background and state of research 1.1 The Eurasian steppes – a unique grassland Kalmykia, the Russian Lower Volga, Western Si- ecosystem beria and especially Kazakhstan a unique grassland ecosystem, which is home to a number of The Eurasian (Pontian) steppes stretch from endemic species, many of them threatened. The Ukraine to the Altai Mountains in Southern Si- carpets of flowering tulips that dot the steppe in beria. They are characterised by a distinct latitu- late April are spectacular, and the plains of silver- dinal zonation: from north to south, belts of for- shining feather grass setting seeds in May are est steppe, tall-grass steppe, short-grass steppe probably the largest in the world. The remaining and desert steppe can be distinguished along a grasslands and some agricultural habitat har- gradient of increasing aridity. bour a number of biome-restricted and endemic animals, including the enigmatic Saiga antelope Once a vast ocean of grass, the ‘Great Steppe’ Saiga tatarica, Steppe Marmots Marmota bobac has gradually been cultivated for rain-fed cereal and the Critically Endangered Sociable Lapwing farming, and the traditional lifestyle of the Tur- Vanellus gregarius, but their future seems uncer- kic nomad tribes travelling the grasslands with tain in a world of growing food and energy de- their horses, sheep and cattle has given way to mand. more intensive livestock breeding systems. This process started early in Ukraine and the steppes 1.2 The dissolution of the Soviet Union and of European Russia, where as early as the end of agricultural change on the Eurasian steppes the 19th century hardly any steppe grassland re- after 1991 mained in pristine condition. In contrast, arable farming started later in the area of today's state When Mikhail Gorbachev introduced more gov- of Kazakhstan, and remained restricted to small ernmental transparency and freedom of speech pockets of fertile steppe near Cossack settle- (‘glasnost’) and fundamentally restructured ments until the collectivisation of the nomadic the political and economical system of the So- tribes under Josef Stalin in the 1930s. A major viet Union (‘perestroika’) in the mid-1980s, few campaign to cultivate the steppes of Kazakhstan would have predicted the magnitude and scale and Russian Western Siberia was launched in of change and turmoil that followed in soci- 1953 under Nikita Khrushchev (McCauley 1976), ety and economy of the former socialist states, leading to cultivation of more than 35 million ha reaching from Eastern Germany to the Pacific, steppe (25 million ha in Kazakhstan alone) by with impacts on a global scale. During the past 1960 and turning the eastern (Asian) steppes 20 years, everywhere in the former ‘eastern bloc into the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. This countries’, the transition from state-controlled, ‘Virgin Lands Campaign’ transformed the face planned to neoliberal, super-capitalist econo- of the Eurasian steppes and led to large-scale mies has led to pronounced changes in attitudes, changes in society and ecology. production and consumption patterns. Naturally, grasslands are particularly vulnerable In the states of the crumbling Soviet Union, to conversion into croplands, but large and con- the decade 1990 – 2000 was characterised by a tiguous expanses of near-natural grasslands have breakdown of industry, infrastructure and social hitherto been preserved in the Eurasian steppes, systems. Times of economic hardship caused with more than 10 % of the world's remaining massive waves of internal human migration and grasslands situated in Kazakhstan (Loveland emigration mostly in the homeland of socialism, et al. 2000). The sheer scale of contiguous, the former Soviet Union: people fled rural areas near-natural grassland makes the steppes of as state farms collapsed, and many, such as the 11 chapter 1 – Introduction ethnic German population of Siberia and Ka- to high livestock densities (Hölzel et al. 2002). zakhstan, moved back to their home countries. These trends of abandonment and crashing ani- Unsurprisingly, these changes had a profound mal numbers were supported by various publi- impact on landscapes and biodiversity: rural ar- cations at the end of the 1990s based on govern- eas now devoid of people reverted to wilderness, mental statistics and land-use maps that became as widespread abandonment in the agricultural more freely available after the cold war ceased. sector occurred across northern Eurasia. Sys- tems of intensive livestock breeding collapsed as Evidence for large-scale declines in the area the animals were used as currency when wages planted for crops (mainly wheat in the steppe were no longer paid out, or simply consumed as zone) were first described by Meng et al. (2000), the shelves of food stores emptied. who evaluated an area of over five million ha abandoned wheat cultivation in Kazakhstan in The year 2000 marked a changing point – since 1998 (which later proved a more than twofold then, in many (but not all) parts of the former underestimate). Soviet Union, the economy has recovered strongly, the rural human population has started Suleimenov & Oram (2000) and Robinson & to increase again and industry and agriculture Milner-Gulland (2003) quantified the crash in have recovered to a certain degree. domestic livestock numbers in Central Asia, with a more than 50 % decrease in Kazakhstan aver- Nearly everywhere in the former Soviet Un- aged for horses, cattle and sheep, and an over- ion, changes in land-use in the 1990s followed all decrease of 80 % in sheep. Spatial patterns in a trend that was subsequently reversed after livestock reduction have been described (e. g. 2000 alongside a recovery of the economy due Lenk 2001, Kerven 2003), with some regions be- to political stabilisation and growing exploita- ing less affected and others loosing virtually their tion of oil, gas and other resources. Although entire domestic animal stocks. Seasonal live- not restricted to it, land-use change was espe- stock migration that had been restricted during cially pronounced in the vast Eurasian steppes, the 20th century but still persisted, ceased in the stretching from Ukraine to the Altai Mountains 1990s, and the animals were concentrated year- in Russia. round at pastures in the immediate vicinity of villages, leading to very imbalanced grazing pat- Post-Soviet land-use change in the steppe zone terns: vast areas of the steppes were completely was first described and quantified from satellite ungrazed, while in the late 1990s overgrazing image analyses: De Beurs & Henebry (2004) and was evident around many villages (Robinson & De Beurs et al. (2009) used a rather coarse, but Milner-Gulland 2003a, b, Kerven et al. 2006). large-scale analysis of NDVI trends in Kazakh- stan and Russia to conclude that the changes Although most evidence for these changes came in the observed land cover phenology between from a few regions in Russia and Kazakhstan, 1986 and 1999 were caused by large increases recently published studies suggest that trends in abandoned land dominated by weedy plant in arable farming and livestock breeding were species and reduced grazing pressure on pas- similar across the Eurasian steppes (e. g. Charles tureland. Finer-scaled satellite analyses com- 2010), probably with the exception of Ukraine, bined with ground truthing conducted in the where livestock numbers crashed but agricul- Kalmykian steppes in SW Russia suggested a ture was mainly abandoned in the mountainous pronounced

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