Why geese benefit from the transition from natural vegetation to agriculture

2017/02/18 by Anthony D. Fox, Anthony David Fox, Kenneth F. Abraham · 158 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · Medicine · #Agriculture #Agroforestry #Archaeology #Biology #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Economics #Environmental science #Geography #Medicine #Natural (archaeology) #Natural resource economics #Plant Reproductive Biology #Plant and animal studies #Transition (genetics) #Vegetation (pathology)

paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s13280-016-0879-1

published in AMBIO 46(S2), 188-197 (Springer Science+Business Media)

openalex publication_date 2017/02/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

The energy and nutrient content of most agricultural crops are as good as or superior to natural foods for wild geese and they tend to be available in agricultural landscapes in far greater abundance. Artificial grasslands (fertilised native swards and intensively managed reseeds) offer far superior quality forage and higher intake rates than seminatural or natural grasslands. The availability of such abundant artificial food explains the abandonment of traditional habitats for farmland by geese over the last 50-100 years and favours no reduction in current levels of exploitation of agriculture. Continental scale spatial and temporal shifts among geese undergoing spring fattening confirm their flexibility to respond rapidly to broadscale changes in agriculture. These dramatic changes support the hypothesis that use of agricultural landscapes has contributed to elevated reproductive success and that European and North American farmland currently provides unrestricted winter carrying capacity for goose populations formerly limited by wetlands habitats prior to the agrarian revolution of the last century.

Citations

• Threatened species to super-abundance: The unexpected international implications of successful goose conservation

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