Although the impacts of intensive agriculture on biodiversity and strategies for mitigating these effects have been widely described, small-scale, diversified farms and the opportunities they present for bird conservation have been less thoroughly examined. This omission is potentially significant, because this form of agriculture represents a growing sector of the industry in the populous northeastern USA, and the diverse habitats on these farms contrast with larger, structurally homogeneous intensive agriculture. To evaluate bird-habitat associations and conservation opportunities for supporting species of conservation concern on these small, diversified farms, we conducted avian point count and vegetation surveys across 23 farms in western Massachusetts during the summers of 2017 and 2018. We used Poisson-binomial mixture models and canonical correspondence analysis to assess the effects of a suite of microhabitat-, field- and landscape-scale (1 km buffer around the field) variables on the abundance of bird species. Our results confirmed that shrubland birds, a group of species of elevated conservation concern, accounted for 52% of the total observations, including song sparrow (Melospiza melodia), gray catbird (Dumatella carolinensis), common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) and American goldfinch (Spinus tristis). Species–habitat relationships were diverse; however, smaller field sizes, and increased cover of tall, dense, woody or non-productive vegetation types were associated with higher abundance of shrubland species as well as lower abundance of crop pests such as European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) and house sparrow (Passer domesticus). These findings support the hypothesis that small, diversified farms are supporting birds of high conservation concern, and we provide species-specific guidelines for farmers interested in conserving birds on their land.

During the course of a population study of small mammals in a Brazilian coastal shrubland we calculated the movements between successive captures, the residence time, the indices of aggregation and the kinds of movements of the five most common species of small mammal. A capture-mark-recapture study was undertaken over two years, quarterly. Philander opossum, Akodon cursor and Proechimys iheringi presented low mobility, with a high proportion of restricted movements, long residence time and larger coefficients of aggregation. Didelphis aurita and Metachirus nudicaudatus presented higher mobility and exploratory movements, short residence time and small coefficients of aggregation. The species with lower mobility had permanent populations within our sampling grid, while the species with higher mobility used areas outside the grid, presenting no local populations but occupying portions of regional metapopulations.

Hong Kong is on the northern edge of the tropics and near the boundary of the Paleotropical and Holarctic floral kingdoms. The phenological states of 105 plant species in secondary shrubland were recorded weekly for three years. Community patterns of reproductive phenology are highly seasonal and vary little between years. There is a flowering maximum in May and a fruiting maximum in December/January. The winter fruiting peak coincides with diet switching by resident omnivorous birds and the arrival of partially frugivorous migrants from the Eastern Palearctic. However, wind-dispersed species also have a fruiting maximum at the same time, suggesting that fruiting in winter has other advantages.