Landscape-moderated biodiversity effects of agri-environmental management: a meta-analysis

By P. Batáry, A. Báldi, D. Kleijn, T. Tscharntke. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences, 2011

647 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Agri-environmental management (AEM) is heralded as being key to biodiversity conservation on farmland, yet results of these schemes have been mixed, making their general utility questionable. We test with meta-analysis whether the benefits of AEM for species richness and abundance of plants and animals are determined by the surrounding landscape context. Across all studies (109 observations for species richness and 114 observations for abundance), AEM significantly increased species richness and their abundance. More specifically, we test the hypothesis that AEM benefits species richness and abundance (i.e. increases the difference between fields with and without AEM) more in simple than in complex landscapes. In croplands, species richness but not abundance was significantly enhanced in simple but not in complex landscapes. In grasslands, AEM effectively enhanced species richness and abundance regardless of landscape context. Pollinators were significantly enhanced by AEM in simple but not in complex landscapes in both croplands and grasslands. Our results highlight that the one-size-fits-all approach of many agri-environmental programmes is not an efficient way of spending the limited funds available for biodiversity conservation on farmland. Therefore, we conclude that AEM should be adapted to landscape structure and the species groups at which they are targeted.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Economics and Econometrics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/82242e41ce4e4dad950a5eec68f8b8df2185d4fe

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Citations in the corpus

Contrasting patterns in species and functional-trait diversity of bees in an agricultural landscape (2015, background): “Unfortunately, most studies assessing the biodiversity benefits of organic farming compare organic farms only with conventionally managed farms, not with natural habitat (e.g. Hole et al. 2005; Clough et al. 2007; Rundl€of, Nilsson & Smith 2008; Bat ary et al. 2011; Tuck et al. 2014; but see Hodgson”
Synthesis, part of a Special Feature on A Social-Ecological Analysis of Diversified Farming Systems: Benefits, Costs, Obstacles, and Enabling Policy Frameworks Ecosystem Services in Biologically Diversified versus Conventional Farming Systems: Benefits, Externalities, and Trade-Offs (2012, background): “In addition, the preservation of natural areas such as source habitats is critical for the maintenance of biodiversity (Batáry et al. 2011), including for ecosystem service providers like pollinators and natural enemies of arthropod pests (Kremen et al.”
Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes ‐ eight hypotheses (2012, result): “In a recent meta-analysis, Batáry et al. (2011) found, in concordance with the intermediate landscape complexity hypothesis, that local agri-environmental management practices in cropland have an effect on biodiversity in simple but not complex landscapes (however, there were not enough studies…”
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…”
Responses of plant, insect and spider biodiversity to local and landscape scale management intensity in cereal crops and grasslands (2012, neutral): “Batáry et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 146 (2012) 130– 136 133”
Opportunities to enhance pollinator biodiversity in solar parks (2021, background): “The evidence reported benefits of organic farming to bumblebees [109], honeybees [116], butterflies [109,171–174], hoverflies [175] and mixed pollinators [92,176,177].”
Relationships between wild bees, hoverflies and pollination success in apple orchards with different landscape contexts (2016, background): “The interaction between landscape structure and crop management variables often drives the diversity and/or the abundance of wild pollinator communities (Holzschuh et al., 2007; Rundlöf et al., 2008; Batáry et al., 2011).”
Biodiversity of Palaearctic grasslands: a synthesis (2014, background): “ative effects were found (Batáry et al., 2011; Kleijn et al., 2006).”
Protecting an ecosystem service: approaches to understanding and mitigating threats to wild insect pollinators (2016, background): “…from setting-aside land that could 504 otherwise be cultivated (‘opportunity cost’), and estimated implementation costs such as the 505 purchase of flowering plant-seed or costs of additional management (see sections 4.5 & 4.6; 506 Batary et al., 2011; Garibaldi et al., 2014; Rundlöf et al., 2013).”