Crop-land simplification impacts differently on small mammal communities: evidence from diversity/dominance plots using Barn Owl (Tyto alba) pellets

The land transformation of traditional agro-mosaics into progressively more anthropized crops can trigger changes in small mammal communities. Here, we reported data about a treatment–control comparison between small mammal communities preyed by the Barn Owl (Tyto alba) in two sites showing different levels of anthropization: simplified crop mosaic (treatment site; ANT) versus a high heterogeneous mosaic (control; CTR). Data from owl’s pellets showed as normalized richness, Shannon–Wiener diversity, evenness, and trophic level were lower in ANT when compared to CTR. Due to: (1) the strong reduction in shrews (Eulipotyphla) of higher trophic level, and to: (2) the higher frequency of the first dominant species (Microtus savii), the diversity/dominance diagrams plot lines appear steeper in ANT. Moreover, comparison of abundance and biomass patterns both in Whittaker and in k-dominance plots, showed a higher sensitivity of abundance to crop-land simplification, when compared to biomass. Although, shrews appear sensitive to the use of chemical compounds in agricul-ture, in our study the cropland management in ANT is based on ‘organic farm’ approach, without use of chemicals. In this regard, we propose alternative processes to explain the shrew reduction