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Effective weed control in agricultural crop fields increases yields, but simultaneously reduces floral resources for pollinators because many weed species provide pollen and nectar. Consequently, efforts to enhance crop yields on organic farms by using effective weed control methods risk compromising positive effects of organic farming on pollinating insects. Thus, it is important to find manageme
Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) to benefit biodiversity became mandatory in intensively farmed landscapes after the reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2013. The implementation of EFAs as uncropped field margins has been criticized as ineffective but created a window of opportunity to test if augmenting them with annual flower strips can benefit biodiversity. In this study, we
Action-based payments that compensate farmers for adopting land-management measures to preserve and en- hance the environment have been criticized for being ineffective. The root of the problem is that farmers are not paid for achieving a desired environmental benefit, but compensated for their costs of management. There is growing interest in formulating result-based economic incentives. By payin
Local adaptation to rare habitats is difficult due to gene flow, but can occur if the habitat has higher productivity. Differences in offspring phenotypes have attracted little attention in this context. We model a scenario where the rarer habitat improves offspring's later competitive ability – a carryover effect that operates on top of local adaptation to one or the other habitat type. Assuming
The spatiotemporal stability of wild organisms, such as flower-visiting insects, is critical to guarantee high levels of biodiversity in agroecosystems. Whereas the proportion of semi-natural habitats in the landscapes has been shown to stabilize the species richness of flower visitors, the effect of farming intensity has not yet been studied. In this study, we compared the temporal and spatial st
It is generally expected that, in environments with pronounced seasonal resource peaks, birds’ reproductive success will be maximised when nestlings’ peak food demand coincides with the timing of high food availability. However in certain birds that stay resident over winter, earlier breeding leads juveniles to join the winter flock earlier, which by the prior residence effect increases their succ
To understand the relationship between conservation measures and agricultural yields, we need to know the contributions of organisms to both ecosystem services and disservices. We studied the activity and contribution of birds and mammals to intermediate ecosystem services (predation of weed seeds or invertebrate pests) and disservices (predation of crop seeds or beneficial invertebrates) in south
In spatially heterogeneous environments, coexistence between competing species can be facilitated by spatially mediated tradeoffs. In this paper we develop a mechanistic model to investigate under which circumstances interspecific differences in the tradeoff between foraging efficiency and travel costs can allow two central place foraging species to coexist in spite of considerable overlap in reso
Changes in farming practices over the past century have had negative influence on farmland biodiversity. Organic farming excludes most agrochemicals, such as inorganic fertilisers and synthetic pesticides, and can be an alternative to conventional farming. A recent meta-analysis indicates that there is on average 30% higher species richness on organically managed farmland compared to conventionall
Organic agriculture is a production system that aims at sustaining healthy soils, ecosystems and people by prohibiting the application of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers in crop production and by emphasising animal welfare in livestock breeding. This article shows that organic agriculture is characterised by higher soil quality and reduced nutrient or pesticide leaching compared to nonorganic
In this chapter three major concepts relating animal population dynamics to landscape change mediated by animal mobility are outlined: meta-population/community dynamics (affecting many habitat specialists), spillover (affecting e.g. ground-living predators), and landscape complementation (affecting e.g. central-place foragers). It is shown that all three concepts contribute to current understandi
Climate change is increasingly posing a threat to biodiversity, both through its direct effects on organisms and through indirect effects resulting from changes in land use. Preserving biodiversity is an ethical obligation, but it is also increasingly being realised that biodiversity contributes to ecosystem services, i.e. ecosystem processes important for human needs and prosperity. In order to a
Eucalyptus plantations have been established in many areas of the world due to their fast growth and profitability. In NW Spain, Eucalyptus plantations now cover a larger area than native forests. Although Eucalyptus plantations have been shown to affect biodiversity, relatively few studies have compared their effect on multiple taxonomic groups and different aspects of biodiversity. We compared h
Declines in European farmland birds over past decades have been attributed to the combined effects of agricultural intensification and abandonment. Consequently, aspirations to stop declines should focus attention on reversing these changes through voluntary or policy-driven interventions. The design of such interventions should ideally be informed by scientific knowledge of which aspects of the t
Pollinators face multiple pressures and there is evidence of populations in decline. As demand for insect-pollinated crops increases, crop production is threatened by shortfalls in pollination services. Understanding the extent of current yield deficits due to pollination and identifying opportunities to protect or improve crop yield and quality through pollination management is therefore of inter
Nature-based solutions (NBS) can help tackle climate change and advance urban sustainability by using nature to deliver social, ecological and economic benefits. However, their success largely depend on implementation for which several barriers exist. For NBS to be meaningful in terms of delivering positive impacts in cities, we need better understanding of how implementation is embedded in NBS fr
The European Union reformed the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP 2013) to include greening measures with the aim to decrease negative impacts of farming on the environment and biodiversity. The degree to which greening measures such as permanent grassland or fallows of different ages enhance biodiversity is still debated. We investigate the effect of fallows in two different age classes and permane
Natural control of invertebrate crop pests has the potential to complement or replace conventional insecticide-based practices, but its mainstream application is hampered by predictive unreliability across agroecosystems. Inconsistent responses of natural pest control to changes in landscape characteristics have been attributed to ecological complexity and system-specific conditions. Here, we revi
Agri-environment schemes are programmes where landholders enter into voluntary agreements (typically with governments) to manage agricultural land for environmental protection and nature conservation objectives. Previous work at local scale has shown that these features can provide additional floral and nesting resources to support wild pollinators, which may indirectly increase floral visitation
