An increase in food production in Europe could dramatically affect farmland biodiversity

dc.contributor.authorJeanneret, Philippe
dc.contributor.authorLüscher, Gisela
dc.contributor.authorSchneider, Manuel K.
dc.contributor.authorPointereau, Philippe
dc.contributor.authorArndorfer, Michaela
dc.contributor.authorBailey, Debra
dc.contributor.authorBalázs, Katalin
dc.contributor.authorBáldi, András
dc.contributor.authorChoisis, Jean-Philippe
dc.contributor.authorDennis, Peter
dc.contributor.authorDiaz, Mario
dc.contributor.authorEiter, Sebastian
dc.contributor.authorElek, Zoltán
dc.contributor.authorFjellstad, Wendy
dc.contributor.authorFrank, Thomas
dc.contributor.authorFriedel, Jürgen K.
dc.contributor.authorGeijzendorffer, Ilse R.
dc.contributor.authorGillingham, Pippa
dc.contributor.authorGomiero, Tiziano
dc.contributor.authorJerkovich, Gergely
dc.contributor.authorJongman, Rob H. G.
dc.contributor.authorKainz, Max
dc.contributor.authorKovács-Hostyánszki, Anikó
dc.contributor.authorMoreno, Gerardo
dc.contributor.authorNascimbene, Juri
dc.contributor.authorOschatz, Marie-Louise
dc.contributor.authorPaoletti, Maurizio G.
dc.contributor.authorSarthou, Jean-Pierre
dc.contributor.authorSiebrecht, Norman
dc.contributor.authorSommaggio, Daniele
dc.contributor.authorWolfrum, Sebastian
dc.contributor.authorHerzog, Felix
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-13T02:27:20Z
dc.date.available2023-09-13T02:27:20Z
dc.date.issued2021-09-02
dc.description© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Version of Scholarly Record of this Article is published in Communications Earth & Environment, 2021, available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00256-x . Keywords: agroecology; ecological modelling; environmental impact.
dc.description.abstractConversion of semi-natural habitats, such as field margins, fallows, hedgerows, grassland, woodlots and forests, to agricultural land could increase agricultural production and help meet rising global food demand. Yet, the extent to which such habitat loss would impact biodiversity and wild species is unknown. Here we survey species richness for four taxa (vascular plants, earthworms, spiders, wild bees) and agricultural yield across a range of arable, grassland, mixed, horticulture, permanent crop, for organic and non-organic agricultural land on 169 farms across 10 European regions. We find that semi-natural habitats currently constitute 23% of land area with 49% of species unique to these habitats. We estimate that conversion of semi-natural land that achieves a 10% increase in agricultural production will have the greatest impact on biodiversity in arable systems and the least impact in grassland systems, with organic practices having better species retention than non-organic practices. Our findings will help inform sustainable agricultural development.
dc.description.sponsorshipAcknowledgements: We thank the farmers for access to land and for information on land management. We are indebted to S. Baldwin, O. Balle, M. Bátki, K.-G. Bernhardt, M. Bouvet, S. Buholzer, B. Bunce, C. Centeri, G. Cuendet, G. Engan, E. Falusi, O.-D. Finch, P. Gillingham, X. Heer, B. Heiner, M. Jerkovich, Z. Józan, C. Kantner, N. Koncz, A. Kulcsár, N. Kwikiriza, L. Lemaire, T. Lord, A. Mjelde, A. Müller, M. Münkenwarf, J. Nascimbene, J. Neumayr, F. Ødegaard, S. Papaja-Hülsbergen, M. Pavett, K. Penksza, L. Podmaniczky, R. Pommeresche, B. Putz, N. Richner, F. Schneiter, S. Schwarz, D. Schwenk, N. Stone, O. Szalkovszki, G. Szalma, T. Szederjesi, H. Timmermann, S. Tolhurst, J. Vale, F. Vuillemin, A. Whittington, J. Wilkes and T. Zanetti for assistance in field sampling, taxonomy and data processing. We thank B. Schmid and P. Edwards for comments that helped improve this manuscript. This work was funded by the European Union through FP7 project BioBio (Indicators for biodiversity in organic and low-input farming systems; www.biobio-indicator.org; Agreement Nr. 227161), by the Austrian Ministry for Science and Research, and by the Lendület program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
dc.identifier.citationJeanneret, P., Lüscher, G., Schneider, M.K. et al. An increase in food production in Europe could dramatically affect farmland biodiversity. Commun Earth Environ 2, 183 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00256-x
dc.identifier.otherhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00256-x
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14096/417
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherSpringer Nature
dc.titleAn increase in food production in Europe could dramatically affect farmland biodiversity
dc.typeArticle

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