Livestock farmsteads are key refuges for farmland birds across different levels of agricultural intensity

Farmland bird populations across Europe have experienced substantial declines in recent decades, primarily due to the intensification and specialization of agricultural practices. Although there is growing evidence that farmsteads are important habitats for farmland birds in intensive cropland-dominated agricultural landscapes, their conservation importance in extensive agricultural landscapes with a high proportion of semi-natural habitats remains poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated farmland bird species richness, abundance, and community composition on active farmsteads with livestock husbandry compared to the surrounding farmland matrix lacking such farmsteads in two regions differing in land-cover composition and agricultural intensity: Czechia, dominated by cropland, and Hungary, dominated by natural grassland. In total, we recorded 12,948 observations of 58 bird species across 212 survey points. Bird communities in both countries were more similar on active farms compared to the surrounding farmland. Moreover, both species richness and abundance of farmland birds were considerably higher on active farms compared to farmland in both landscapes. However, this effect was conditional on bird nesting ecology, with building nesters showing the strongest positive association with farmsteads. The composition of the surrounding habitat partly influenced bird abundance, although its effect was less important than the presence of active farms. In conclusion, our findings highlight the (overlooked) importance of traditional livestock farmsteads for the conservation of farmland birds, even in landscapes characterized by comparatively extensive agricultural management.