Do wheat, barley and oats provide similar habitat and food resources for birds in cereal steppes?

Vegetation structure and seed abundance were compared across three types of cereal fields (wheat, barley and oats) in Castro Verde (Portugal). Bird abundance and species richness were also compared across cereal types, during winter, breeding and post-breeding seasons. There was a gradient of increasing vegetation height and density in the sequence oats barley>wheat) during winter, but no difference was found for the breeding and post-breeding seasons. Significant differences were also obtained for skylark Alauda arvensis and fan-tailed warbler Cisticola juncidis, respectively, for winter and breeding seasons. Bird species richness was not influenced by cereal type in any season. Different cereal species provide different habitat and food resources for birds. This should be taken into account when defining agri-environmental management rules.