Waders of Agricultural Areas of the Ivanovo Region in the Crisis of Agricultural Production

The agricultural landscape of the Ivanovo region is now a sophisticated mosaic of variety of types of lands in use and abandoned lands at different stages of succession. This is mainly determined the fauna, structure and population dynamics of such open-field birds as waders. The paper reflects the correlation of the fauna and population of the waders of agricultural lands in the Ivanovo region with such key factors in farming ecosystems as the stages of succession, haymaking, pasturage, and agricultural burning of vegetation. 20 wader species are noted on the agricultural areas of the Ivanovo region, 13 of which are breeding. 6 species are typical inhabitants of overgrown agriculture lands (the lapwing, the curlew, the black-tailed Godwit, the common redshank, the common snipe, and the great snipe). The moisture content of soil in a specific year is the determining factor for the common snipe to nest on agricultural lands, the species demonstrates no pronounced trends of the population density related to succession processes, up to the development of shrub-arborous vegetation. The other species of waders actively populate unused, fallow lands at intermediate stages of the demutational succession, increasing their abundance just at the first stages and avoiding sites overgrown with shrub-arborous vegetation. The lapwing also inhabits lands in use, while other wader species avoid nesting on actively exploited agricultural lands. The common redshank and the great snipe somewhat avoid lands with haymaking sites. By means of correlation analysis, a positive correlation was tracked of the wader fauna and population on non-annual (irregular) spring burns of vegetation, which hold down the succession at the stages favorable for waders.