Selecting appropriate focal species for assessing the risk to birds from newly drilled pesticide‐treated winter cereal fields in France

ABSTRACT Identifying focal bird species appropriate to the situation in which a plant protection product is used is important for refined risk assessment (EFSA ). We analyzed the results of extensive field observations of newly drilled cereal fields in France in autumn over 2 seasons to determine real bird focal species. In 2011, birds were observed before and after drilling on wheat and barley fields drilled with imidacloprid‐treated seeds (i.e., “treatment” fields) or seeds treated with compounds other than imidacloprid (i.e., “alternative treatment” fields). Bird abundance, species richness, and diversity were significantly higher in wheat fields than barley fields; these findings led us to monitor only wheat fields in 2012. Statistical analyses did not show a significant effect of the drilling itself or between the treatment fields and the alternative treatment fields on the number and type of bird species. These results led to the pooling of 2011 data on all fields for focal species determination. Similarly, all bird monitoring data generated in 2012 before and after drilling were pooled and analyzed. Rules for determination of candidate focal species detailed in the EFSA () guidance were followed. Carrion crow, wood pigeon, gray partridge, skylark, common starling, and pied wagtail were the bird species most frequently observed on wheat fields. This list of candidate species was processed to determine the most relevant focal species according to the method of Dietzen et al. (); this process resulted in the selection of skylark, gray partridge, wood pigeon, and pied wagtail as focal species to assess risks to birds for pesticides applied during drilling of winter cereals in France (September through November). Integr Environ Assess Manag 2019;00:000–000. © 2018 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC) Key Points We identified real bird focal species important in higher‐tier risk assessments for plant protection products applied during drilling of winter cereals in France (September–December) such as the skylark, the gray partridge, the wood pigeon, and the pied wagtail. We used a large data set of bird observations performed in 126 newly drilled cereal fields in autumn in France over 2 years. We focused our data analysis on immediate postdrilling period important to identify relevant bird focal species. We followed rules det