This paper reviews the current knowledge of the effects of non-inversion tillage (NIT) on farmland birds and their food resources. NIT is a method of establishing a crop without using a mouldboard plough and is becoming increasingly popular in the UK. NIT generally disturbs the soil to shallower depths than conventional tillage and is therefore expected to have beneficial effects on biodiversity on arable land as compared with mouldboard ploughing. The diets of farmland birds change throughout the year, and many species take invertebrates over the breeding season. Seeds are also important for many species of farmland birds throughout the year and especially over the winter months. The effects of NIT on these farmland bird food resources, in particular ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae), spiders (Arachnida: Araneae), earthworms (Annelida) and seeds (arable weeds and cereal crops) are reviewed.
Background Agricultural intensification has contributed to increased diffuse source pollution within water catchments, reduced heterogeneity within the landscape and caused major declines in farmland wildlife. This decrease in biodiversity has been shown to decrease vital ecosystem services such as pollination, biological pest control (bio-control) and water quality protection. The morphological traits of plant species, such as floral display size and leaf area, provide support to these services and vegetative strips can be established with plants that have these desirable traits to try and restore ecosystem service support to farmland. Vegetative strips are widely used across the world, especially in Europe, however, there is a need to increase their functionality due to issues of land availability and food security. To do this, combinations of plant species that will support specific ecosystem services, have been developed. However, to enable a fully-informed development process, evidence must be collated on which specific plant traits provide the support to the target ecosystem services. The primary objective of this study was to systematically map all evidence for specific plant traits that may provide support for pollinators, bio-control and water quality protection in temperate climates. Methods Both published and grey literature were obtained through databases and NGO websites using key search terms. An initial 34,077 articles were identified with a total of 11,705 individual articles, after duplicates were removed. These were screened for inclusion based on criteria such as subject, climate and language. Each article was coded into a Microsoft Access database using generic (e.g. author, publication date, study length) and topic specific (e.g. target system, organism and ecosystem service) keywords. Results After screening 56 articles were coded into the systematic map. A total of 40 articles identified 37 plant traits for pollinator support, seven identified eight traits for bio-control and nine identified 26 for water quality protection. All articles were published between 1983 and 2017 and they included studies that were undertaken in 22 different countries. Discussion This systematic mapping process produced a searchable database of literature available on plant traits and the target ecosystem services. It has highlighted that more research has been conducted on plant traits for pollinator support than for bio-control and water quality protection, identifying potential research gaps in these areas. Evidence presented in this map could inform decisions related to the suitability of plant species for inclusion within multifunctional vegetative strips, providing targeted ecosystem services. This information could be used by policy makers to develop an option that could benefit landowners and farmland wildlife concurrently.
Farmland vegetative strips are a proven source of support for ecosystem services and are globally used to mitigate effects of agricultural intensification. However, increasing pressures on agricultural land require increases in their functionality, such as supporting multiple ecosystem services concurrently. The plant species sown in a vegetative strip seed mix determine the establishment, plant community, and ecosystem services that are supported. Currently, there is no clearly defined or structured method to select plant species for multifunctional vegetative strips. Plant traits determine how plants support ecosystem services. Also, the establishment and persistence of plant communities is influenced by key internal and external factors. We propose a novel, evidence‐informed method of multifunctional vegetative strip design based on these essential traits and factors. This study had three distinct stages. The first identified plant traits that support water quality protection, pollinators and/or crop pest natural enemies, using existing research evidence. We then identified key factors affecting plant community establishment and persistence. Finally, we applied these standardized methods to design a multifunctional vegetative strip for a specific case study (UK lowland farmland). Key plant traits identified, included floral display size, flower color, nectar content, leaf surface area, leaf trichome density, percentage fine roots, root length, rooting depth, and root density. Key internal and external establishment factors included life history, native status, distribution, established competitive strategy, associated floristic diversity, flowering time and duration, and preferred soil type and pH. In the United Kingdom case study, we used five different plant traits and all of the identified factors to design a seed mix for a multifunctional vegetative strip. We present a transferable method of vegetative strip design that can be adapted for other ecosystem services and climates. It provides landowners and advisors with an evidence‐informed approach to increase field margin functionality while supporting farmland biodiversity. OPEN RESEARCH BADGES This article has earned an Open Data Badge for making publicly available the digitally‐shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported results. The data is available at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8t52n38 .
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