Ski-piste revegetation promotes partial bird community recovery in the European Alps

Capsule: Restoration of grasslands on ski-pistes caused a recovery in the bird community, but not to the extent that it was equivalent to a natural Alpine grassland community.

Aim: To test whether revegetation of ski-pistes in open habitat areas results in bird community recovery.

Methods: The bird communities in two ski resorts in the Italian Maritime Alps were surveyed using a standardized area count method in three different plot types: non-restored ski-pistes (newly constructed), restored ski-pistes and control plots in grassland far from ski-pistes.

Results: In 49 independent plots, 32 species were recorded. Species richness and abundance of birds were significantly higher on restored than on non-restored ski-pistes, independently of the species group considered and the analyses carried out. Bird community parameters of restored ski-pistes were still lower than those of natural grassland, as shown by results of typical grassland species.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that an apparently successful restoration of ski-pistes may be not enough to promote a complete recovery of bird communities. The complete recovery of local bird communities may be promoted only if an integral recovery of the original vegetal communities is achieved. We suggest the best conservation option is to adopt techniques to maintain as far as possible original grassland if construction of new ski-pistes is unavoidable.