Factores ambientais que afectaram a ocorrência primaveril de Codorniz Coturnix coturnix no Baixo Alentejo.

Abstract

Environmental factors affecting spring occurrence of the Quail Coturnix coturnix in the Alentejo.There is a shortage of information on habitat use of Quail (Coturnix coturnix). We assessed the effect of different environmental variables on the occurrence of this species in early spring in an agricultural landscape of Baixo Alentejo, southern Portugal, by computing a multivariate logistic model. Data were collected in April 1995-97 on 248 250-m walked transects. Variables entering the model were selected through forward stepwise selection. The probability of detecting quails along the transects was negatively affected by cover diversity, proximity to roads, rain and unmanaged public hunting; it was positively affected by the presence of cereals, which was the variable showing the highest level of significance of likelihood-ratio tests associated with the selection of the variables. Conservation and management implications of the results are discussed.