Agriculture: Widespread local house-sparrow extinctions

@article{Hole2002AgricultureWL,
  title={Agriculture: Widespread local house-sparrow extinctions},
  author={David G. Hole and Mark J. Whittingham and Richard B. Bradbury and Guy Q. A. Anderson and Patricia L. M. Lee and Jeremy D. Wilson and John Richard Krebs},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2002},
  volume={418},
  pages={931-932}
}
House-sparrow populations have declined sharply in Western Europe in recent decades, but the reasons for this decline have yet to be identified, despite intense public interest in the matter. Here we use a combination of field experimentation, genetic analysis and demographic data to show that a reduction in winter food supply caused by agricultural intensification is probably the principal explanation for the widespread local extinctions of rural house-sparrow populations in southern England… 
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