Reviewing change in the arable flora of Europe: a meta‐analysis

Richner, Nina; Holderegger, Rolf; Linder, H. Peter; Walter, Thomas

doi:10.1111/wre.12123

Cited by 96 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…A significant loss of diversity has also been observed in the overall weed seed bank over recent decades in number of European countries (Robinson and Sutherland 2002;Roberts 1981;Roberts and Feast 1973;Chancellor 1986), though recent changes in agricultural management since the 1990s (e.g. organic farming and reduced pesticide input) may have helped to slow down the decline of the arable flora in terms of species number (Richner et al 2015). The characteristic species or the threatened arable weeds are, however, still in decline (Richner et al 2015).…”

Section: Weeds and Crops: Ecological And Agricultural Debts Of Use Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weeds for bees? A review

Bretagnolle

Gaba

2015

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

226

125

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Agricultural intensification has led to the decrease of the diversity of wild and domestic pollinators. For instance, honeybees declined by 59 % in 61 years in the USA. About 35 % of major crops in the world depend on pollination services, and 3-8 % of world crop production will disappear without pollinators. Indeed, pollination provides several ecosystem services such as enabling crop and honey productions, regulating weeds and other cultural services. Agricultural intensification has also decreased weed diversity by about 50 % in 70 years because massive herbicide sprays have reduced the competition between weeds and crops. Nevertheless, weeds are at the basis of agricultural foodwebs, providing food to many living organisms. In particular, weeds provide flowers for pollinating insects including honey and wild bees. Here, we review the decline of weeds and bees. We discuss the effect of bees and pollination on crop production. We describe the complex interactions between bee pollinators, e.g. honey and wild bees, and landscape habitats such as crop fields and seminatural elements. For that, we focus on spatial and temporal effects on flower resources. We show that weed abundance can reduce crop yields, thus inducing conflict with farmers.But weed abundance enhances regulating services by ensuring the survival of honeybees in the absence of oil seed crops. Weed abundance also enhances pollination services and, in turn, honey yield for the benefit of beekeepers. Weed abundance has also improved the survival of wild flora and the socio-cultural value of landscapes, a major request from the public. From those findings, we present a conceptual framework allowing to define ecological engineering options based upon ecosystem services of weeds and pollinators.

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Section: Weeds and Crops: Ecological And Agricultural Debts Of Use Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weeds for bees? A review

Bretagnolle

Gaba

2015

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

226

125

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“…The first dataset was sampled by Zalokar [13] and those in 2002 [14,15] and 2012 by the current author and this is the longest duration dataset of weed vegetation recording in Europe [16]. Vegetation was sampled at all three points in time using the same field protocol, applying the Central European method [17].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to most published literature to date, there has been a general trend of declining species richness in weed vegetation after the Second World War [9,16,[33][34][35][36]. However, some studies have recorded the opposite trend [37,38].…”

Section: Species Richnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, some studies have recorded the opposite trend [37,38]. However, there is a trend of an increase in the average species number in weed vegetation in Europe since 1980 that indicates that measures to protect biodiversity have been successful [16]. It should be noted that an increase in species richness in 2002 may not be only because of changes in agriculture but also due to differences in annual weather fluctuation between samplings, changes of area of different crops grown or changes in management practices [38].…”

Section: Species Richnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Biotic homogenization and differentiation in weed vegetation over the last 70 years

Šilc

2015

Open Life Sciences

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Biotic homogenization is the increasing similarity of the species composition of communities over time and represents a loss of biodiversity. We analysed changes in weed vegetation over a period of 70 years by comparing three datasets (from 1939, 2002 and 2012) sampled with the same methodology. We present the results of changes in species richness, homogenization and differentiation as expanding neophytes and generalist species. The species richness of weed communities decreased and the number of neophytes in cereal fields and root crops increased over time. The decreased ratio of specialists to generalists in vernal communities and cereal crops indicates homogenization, while the ratio of generalists to specialists increased in root crops.

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“…Moreover, we neglected surveys with an exclusive focus on rare and endangered species. Sequentially repeated surveys with this focus are analysed in a review reporting species losses in time (Richner et al 2015).…”

Section: Selection Of Surveysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methods to conduct and analyse weed surveys in arable farming: a review

Hanzlik

Gerowitt

2016

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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Arable weeds always accompany arable farming; however, species and abundances vary in space and change in time. Surveys assess weeds on a large spatial scale. The regional and national importance, the abundances in which weeds occur, is derived from surveys. Environmental and management background data assist to explain the weed vegetation. Arable weed surveys can have an agronomic, a botanical or an ecological purpose-we approach the agronomic viewpoint. Scientific value results from spatial data about the arable weed vegetation for modelling the dependencies and predicting future changes on a large scale. Researchers, botanists, farmers, advisors, herbicide manufacturers and other industry players engaged in weed control can get rationale spatial impressions of trends in the weed vegetation. This review focuses on methodical aspects of weed surveys. Forty-three surveys on farmed fields, mainly but not exclusively undertaken in Europe, done in up to nine crops per survey covering periods of 1 to 67 years and including 59 to 4423 fields were excerpted for suitable methods to conduct and analyse surveys. The methods reflect agronomic and other targets, e.g. from vegetation science. When accessing existing data, the interdependencies of the layout and all targets should be handled with care. When setting up surveys for agronomic purpose, it is worthwhile to include 3 years and apply stratified sampling. We recommend assessing abundances rather than presence only. Weed survey data is most suitable for applying multivariate statistics. We recommend using proven methods, without discouraging to explore others. To collect sound explanatory data demands for robust contacts with land managers. Explanatory variables are important in survey analyses to extract knowledge about the drivers of the weed vegetation. We conclude that extra value can be obtained from existing weed survey data. We propose to setup public-private partnerships as a way to carry on with arable weed surveys.

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Reviewing change in the arable flora of Europe: a meta‐analysis

Cited by 96 publications

References 43 publications

Weeds for bees? A review

Weeds for bees? A review

Biotic homogenization and differentiation in weed vegetation over the last 70 years

Methods to conduct and analyse weed surveys in arable farming: a review

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