Farmland species provide key ecological services that support agricultural production, but are under threat from agricultural intensification and mechanization. In order to design effective measures to mitigate agricultural impact, simultaneous investigations of different taxonomic groups across several regions are required. Therefore, four contrasting taxonomic groups were investigated: plants, earthworms, spiders and bees (wild bees and bumblebees), which represent different trophic levels and provide different ecological services. To better understand underlying patterns, three community measurements for each taxonomic group were considered: abundance, species richness and species composition. In four European regions, ten potential environmental drivers of the four taxonomic groups were tested and assigned to three groups of drivers: geographic location (farm, region), agricultural management (crop type, mineral nitrogen input, organic nitrogen input, mechanical field operations and pesticide applications) and surrounding landscape in a 250 m buffer zone (diversity of habitats in the surroundings, proportion of arable fields and proportion of non-productive, non-woody habitats). First, the variation in abundance, species richness and species composition from 167 arable sites was partitioned to compare the relative contribution of the three groups of drivers (geographic location, agricultural management and surrounding landscape). Second, generalized linear mixedeffects models were applied to estimate the effect of the individual explanatory variables on abundance and species richness. Our analysis showed a dominant effect of geographic location in all four taxonomic groups and a strong influence of agricultural management on plants, spiders and bees.The effect of the surrounding landscape was of minor importance and inconsistent in our data. We conclude that in European arable fields, the avoidance of mineral nitrogen and pesticides is beneficial for biodiversity, and that species protection measures should take into account regional characteristics and the community structure of the investigated taxonomic groups.
Last, L., Arndorfer, M., Bal?zs, K., Dennis, P., Dyman, T., Fjellstad, W., Friedel, J. K., Herzog, F., Jeanneret, P., Luscher, G., Moreno, G., Kwikiriza, N., Gomiero, T., Paoletti, M., Pointereau, P., Sarthou, J-P., Stoyanova, S., Wolfrum, S., K?lliker, R. (2014). Indicators for the on-farm assessment of crop cultivar and livestock breed diversity: a survey-based participatory approach. Biodiversity and Conservation, 23 (12), 3051-3071Agrobiodiversity plays a fundamental role in guaranteeing food security. However, still little is known about the diversity within crop and livestock species: the genetic diversity. In this paper we present a set of indicators of crop accession and breed diversity for different farm types at farm-level, which may potentially supply a useful tool to assess and monitor farming system agrobiodiversity in a feasible and relatively affordable way. A generic questionnaire was developed to capture the information on crops and livestock in 12 European case study regions and in Uganda by 203 on-farm interviews. Through a participatory approach, which involved a number of stakeholders, eight potential indicators were selected and tested. Five of them are recommended as potentially useful indicators for agrobiodiversity monitoring per farm: (1) crop-species richness (up to 16 crop species), (2) crop-cultivar diversity (up to 15 crop cultivars, 1?2 on average), (3) type of crop accessions (landraces accounted for 3 % of all crop cultivars in Europe, 31 % in Uganda), (4) livestock-species diversity (up to 5 livestock species), and (5) breed diversity (up to five cattle and eight sheep breeds, on average 1?2).We demonstrated that the selected indicators are able to detect differences between farms, regions and dominant farm types. Given the present rate of agrobiodiversity loss and the dramatic effects that this may have on food production and food security, extensive monitoring is urgent. A consistent survey of crop cultivars and livestock breeds on-farm will detect losses and help to improve strategies for the management and conservation of on-farm genetic resources.authorsversionPeer reviewe
Manuscript reference: JLCA-D-16-00169 This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Verlag via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11367-017-1278-yPurpose: Inclusion of the impact of land use on biodiversity within the context of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is essential to assess the effects of human activities on the environment. Numerous models have been applied, but validations that use actual data collected in the field are scarce. Methods: The expert system SALCA-BD (Swiss Agricultural LCA ? Biodiversity), assigns coefficients for land use class suitability and impact of agricultural practices on species diversity at the field and farm scale. We used data on land use classes and agricultural practices from 132 farms located in eight European regions to complete the life cycle inventory. SALCA-BD species diversity scores were calculated for individual plots, aggregated to the farm scale and compared to field records of arable crop flora, grassland flora, spiders and wild bees. Results: Overall, species diversity scores from SALCA-BD were positively related to the observed species richness from field survey data. The extent of the relationship diminished from arable crop flora and grassland flora to spiders and to wild bees, and from the field to farm scale. Conclusions: Improvements of land use class suitability coefficients for semi-natural land use classes and region specific conditions are recommended. The validation of LCA biodiversity assessment tools with data from field survey is a necessary step to facilitate improvement and increase credibility of such tools.Peer reviewe
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