Tomas Pärt

I work mainly with questions concerning landscape effects on population and biodiversity dynamics. Another recent project is about wetland restorations and their effects on bird diversity. More than 100 million SEK has been put into wetland creation and restoration actions but we still have no evaluations on whether the goals are reached. A third major path concerns a longterm study (25 yrs) of a population of northern wheatears in the farmland SE Uppsala, with high quality pedigree data on demography and habitat choice and long-term data on landuse changes. A fourth path follows my previous diggings into life history evolution, dispersal and habitat selection processes.

Some questions:

Landscape Ecology

How important is agricultural intensity for habitat-specific alpha, beta and gamma diversity in agricultural landscapes?

Which other factors drive spatial and temporal variation of biodversity in the farmland?

Wetland restorations

Which landscape and local factors affect restoration effects on wetland bird communities and how should restoration strategies take into account landscape effects when prioritising wetlands?

Are certain restoration measures in conflict with farming activities through increased attraction of large numbers of geese, swans and cranes?

Evolution, demography and population growth rates

Do warmer springs affect selection for early breeding, annual demographic rates and habitat-specific population growth rates?

Can the population cope with a changed agricultural landscape and changed predation rates when the climate changes?

PhDs, postdocs, researchers and collaborations

PhDs: Main supervisor for a new PhDstudent starting soon (wetland restorations) and assistant supervisor for Teresa Montras Janer (wetlands and crop damage by large grazing birds).

Postdocs: Right now I have the following postdocs: Michal Zmihorski (farmland, wetlands), Alejandro Ruete (wetlands), Marianne Pasanen Mortensen  and a new postdoc starting soon (wheatears). Others in the group at the unit are: Matthew Hiron, Jonas Josefsson, Jonas Knape, Debora Arlt, Pär Forslund Matt Low and Sönke Eggers.

Yet other collaborators are:  Åke Berg (Center for Biodiversity , SLU) Blandine Doligez (Univ. Lyon), Anna Qvarnström (dispersal flycatchers, EBC; Uppsala Univ.), and to some extent also with e.g. Suzanna Rosin Dorota Kotowska , Piotr Skórka and Piotr Tryjanowski all in Poland.

All publications at Reasearchgate

Josefsson J, Lokhorst AM, Pärt T, Berg Å & Eggers S. (in press). Effects of a coordinated farmland bird conservation project on farmers intentions to implement nature conservation practices – evidence from the Swedish Volunteer & Farmer Alliance. Journal of Environmental Management (in press)

Zmihorski  M,  ŁAWICKI L, MARCHOWSKI D, WYLEGAŁA P & PÄRT T.  (in press). Spatial variation in long-term trends of local populations of the globally threatened Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola in Poland. Acta Ornitologica

Zmihorski M, Berg Å  & Pärt. 2016. Forest clear-cuts as additional habitat for breeding farmland birds in crisis. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment 233:291-297

Emmerson M, Morales MB, Onate JJ, Batary P, Berenndse F, Liira J, Aavik T, Guerrero I, Bommarco R, Eggers S, Pärt T, Tscharntke T, Weisser W, Clement L, & Bengtsson J. 2016. How agricultural intensification affects biodiversity and ecosystem service. Advances in Ecological Research 55: 43-97

Rosin ZM, Skórka P,  PärtT, Żmihorski,M, Ekner-Grzyb A, Kwieciński5 Z& Tryjanowski P. 2016. Village and its old farmsteads are hot-spots of bird diversity in agricultural landscapes. J Applied Ecol. 53: 1363-1372

Jonas Josefsson1*, Åke Berg2, Matthew Hiron3 Tomas Pärt4, Sönke Eggers5 2016. Does the CAP fit? Sensitivity of the farmland bird community to crop diversification in

Zmihorski M, Kotowska D., Berg Å & Pärt T. 2016. Evaluating conservation tools in Polish grasslands: The occurrence of birds in relation to agri-enviromental schemes and Natura 2000 areas. Biol. Cons. 194:150-157

Schmaljohann H, Meier C,…Pärt…Eikenaar (19 authors) 2016. Proximate causes of avian protandry differ between subspecies with contrasting migration challenges Behavioral ecology 27:321-331

Żmihorski M, Pärt T, Gustafson T, Berg Å. 2016. Effects of water level and grassland management on alpha and beta diversity of wet-grassland bird in restored Swedish wetlands . J Appl Ecol.53:587-595

Mills, JA, Teplitsky C,…Pärt T….Zedrosser A (in total 63 authors). 2016. Solutions for archiving data in long-term studies: A reply to Whitlock et al. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 31:85-87

Mills, JA, Teplitsky C,…Pärt T….Zedrosser A (in total 63 authors). 2015. Archiving primary data: solutions for long-term studies. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 30: 581-589

Hiron M, Berg Å, Eggers S, Berggren Å, Josefsson J & Pärt T.2015. The relationship of bird diversity to crop and non-crop heterogeneity in agricultural landscapes. Landscape ecology 30: 2001-2013.

Arlt D, P Olsson, J Fox, M Low & T Pärt. 2015. Prolonged stopover duration characterises migration strategy and constraints of a long-distant migrant songbird. Animal Migration 2: 47-62

Low, M. , Arlt D, Pärt T & Öberg M 2015. Delayed timing of breeding as a cost of reproduction. J. Avian Biol. 46:325-331

Berg Å., Wretenberg J, Zmihorski M, Hiron, M. & Pärt T. 2015. Linking occurrence and changes in local abundance of farmland bird species to landscape composition and land-use changes. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment 204:1-7

Öberg M, Pärt, T, Laugen AT, Arlt D, Eggers S & Low M. 2015. Rainfall during parental care affects multiple fitness components. Ecology & Evolution 5:345-356

More about wheatears:

https://internt.slu.se/cv-originalen/debora-arlt/

More about complex statistics:

https://internt.slu.se/cv-originalen/alejandro-ruete/

https://internt.slu.se/cv-originalen/jonas-knape/

More about birds in the farmland:

https://internt.slu.se/en/cv-originals/jonas-josefsson/

https://internt.slu.se/en/cv-originals/matthew-hiron/

https://www.slu.se/cv/ake-berg/