Mixed biodiversity benefits of agri-environment schemes in five European countries.

By D. Kleijn, R. Baquero, Y. Clough, M. Díaz, J. D. Esteban, F. Fernández, Doreen Gabriel, F. Herzog, A. Holzschuh, R. Jöhl and 8 more. Ecology Letters, 2006

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Agri-environment schemes are an increasingly important tool for the maintenance and restoration of farmland biodiversity in Europe but their ecological effects are poorly known. Scheme design is partly based on non-ecological considerations and poses important restrictions on evaluation studies. We describe a robust approach to evaluate agri-environment schemes and use it to evaluate the biodiversity effects of agri-environment schemes in five European countries. We compared species density of vascular plants, birds, bees, grasshoppers and crickets, and spiders on 202 paired fields, one with an agri-environment scheme, the other conventionally managed. In all countries, agri-environment schemes had marginal to moderately positive effects on biodiversity. However, uncommon species benefited in only two of five countries and species listed in Red Data Books rarely benefited from agri-environment schemes. Scheme objectives may need to differentiate between biodiversity of common species that can be enhanced with relatively simple modifications in farming practices and diversity or abundance of endangered species which require more elaborate conservation measures.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/13ade4531e151ec88cdc83d52a2c2b1dbd32ccdf

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Citations in the corpus

Pollination reservoirs for wild bee habitat enhancement in cropping systems: a review (2017, background): “…1Larsson and Franzén 2007, Morandin and Kremen 2013a, Blaauw and Isaacs 2014a, Scheper et al. 2015, Wood et al. 2015a; 2Kleijn et al. 2001, Kleijn et al. 2006, Albrecht et al. 2007, Klein et al. 2012, Korpela et al. 2013, Saunders et al. 2013, M’Gonigle et al. 2015, Ponisio et al. 2015,…”
Improving biodiversity monitoring (2012, background): “Despite this, biodiversity monitoring has a chequered history in environmental management and conservation practice both in Australia (e.g. ANAO 1997, 2008) and elsewhere (Kleijn & Sutherland 2003; Bernhardt et al. 2005; Kleijn et al. 2006; Muir 2010).”
Functional landscape heterogeneity and animal biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. (2011, background): “In addition, the effectiveness of the numerous agri-environment schemes in Europe have been questioned (Kleijn et al. 2006); in many instances, they have yet to provide any detectable biodiversity benefits (e.g. Davey et al. 2010).”
Relationships between biodiversity and biological control in agroecosystems: Current status and future challenges (2014, background): “Agri-environment schemes provide monetary incentives for farmers to manage a portion of their land to promote conservation of biodiversity and reduced impacts on the environment (Benton et al., 2003; Kleijn et al., 2006).”
Wild bee pollinators provide the majority of crop visitation across land‐use gradients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, USA (2007, background): “Currently, there is debate over the most effective way to restore biodiversity in agricultural landscapes (Kleijn et al. 2006).”
Emerging issues and challenges in conservation of biodiversity in the rangelands of Tanzania (2013, background): “Current management and the European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) regulations as applied in Sweden and elsewhere (Batary et al. 2011; Kleijn et al. 2006; Kleijn and Sutherland 2003) favour intensive grazing on the remaining semi-natural grasslands, with strong negative effects on butterfly…”
Rapid recovery of a depleted population of Little Bustards Tetrax tetrax following provision of alfalfa through an agri-environment scheme (2011, background): “The implementation of AES and their costs have recently been the focus of much criticism (Kleijn & Sutherland 2003, Kleijn et al. 2006).”
Sown wildflower strips for insect conservation: a review (2011, background): “Both positive and zero effects of AES on certain aspects of biodiversity have been revealed by the increasing number of studies on this topic (e.g. Feehan et al., 2005; Kleijn et al., 2006; Albrecht et al., 2007;Kohler et al., 2007).”