Landscape greening and local creation of wildflower strips and hedgerows promote multiple ecosystem services

Abstract

The explicit and implicit aims of creating ecological focus areas (EFAs) and implementing greening measures in European agro‐ecosystems include the promotion of regulatory ecosystem services (ES) to sustain crop production in conventional cropping systems. However, the extent to which these goals are achieved with current policy measures remains poorly explored. We measured insect‐mediated pollination and natural pest control service provisioning in 18 winter oilseed rape fields as a function of the independent and interactive effects of local EFA establishment─sown wildflower strips and hedgerows─and landscape‐scale greening measures within a 1 km radius around focal fields and quantified their contribution to crop yield. Insect pollination potential and pest predation increased on average by 10% and 13%, respectively, when landscape‐scale greening measures share was increased from 6% to 26%. For pollination, the increase was stronger in fields adjoining an EFA (14%) than in fields without adjacent EFA (7%). Agricultural management practices were the main drivers of crop yield. Neither insect pollination potential or natural pest control (pest predation and parasitism) nor adjacent EFAs and landscape‐scale greening significantly affected crop yield in addition to agricultural management. Synthesis and applications. Local establishment of perennial, species‐rich wildflower strips and hedgerows, combined with landscape‐scale greening measures in agricultural landscapes, can promote multiple ecosystem services (ES) in conventional production systems. Benefits may be maximized when local and landscape measures are combined. However, enhanced pollination and natural pest regulation seem to contribute relatively little to final crop yield compared to local agricultural management practices in the high‐input conventional production system studied. Further research is needed to better understand how to improve the effectiveness of ecological focus areas and other greening measures in promoting regulatory ES. Potential improvements include minimising trade‐offs while promoting synergies between ES provision, food production and biodiversity conservation.

Effects of land use on infestation and parasitism rates of cabbage seed weevil in oilseed rape

“…Selection of landscape circles was furthermore based on the type of habitat bordering the focal field of each circle, such that we would have six replicate landscape circles for each of three types of adjacent habitat: crop field, linear herbaceous SNH or linear woody SNH. The study site selection (Section 2.1), landscape description and classification of SNHs (Section 2.2), and experimental design (Section 2.3) were based on standardized protocols of the EU FP7 project QuESSA across participating regions and crops …”

How much do we really lose?—Yield losses in the proximity of natural landscape elements in agricultural landscapes

“…Tschumi et al () found 10% higher yields close to flower strips, which they attributed to indirect benefits from pest control. In contrast, Sutter et al () demonstrated that ecological focus areas, such as wildflower strips, had no significant effect on oilseed rape yield, even though pollination and pest control had been increased by around 10%. From studies of hedgerows, we know that negative effects on crop yields can occur within the first meters from the field border (Kort, ).…”

Identifying native plants for coordinated habitat management of arthropod pollinators, herbivores and natural enemies

“…Habitats with flowering resources, for example, are typically established either for pollinators or for natural enemies, although each of these planting types may affect both organism groups (Fiedler, Landis, & Wratten, 2008;Wratten, Gillespie, Decourtye, Mader, & Desneux, 2012). There has been limited effort to integrate provision of flowering resources for pollination and pest control (but see Grab, Poveda, Danforth, & Loeb, 2018;Sutter, Albrecht, & Jeanneret, 2018). This is surprising, given that for growers it is important that plantings for pollinators do not increase pest pressure, and desirable that they provide biological pest control services (Sidhu & Joshi, 2016).…”