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Edited by Robert John Scholes, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits, South Africa, and approved January 18, 2021 (received for review July 30, 2020)
Significance
The loss of biodiversity challenges agriculture as crop yields depend on biodiversity-mediated ecosystem services. Targeted agri-environmental schemes (AES), like sown flowering fields, provide additional food resources and shelter for wild plants and animals. Such AES have been implemented to restore biodiversity in agricultural landscapes and ensure ecosystem services provision. However, little is known about the comparative benefits of different AES for functional biodiversity and whether temporal continuity, covered area, or perennial source habitats in the surrounding landscape limit the success of an AES. Here, we systematically evaluate within one study design how temporal continuity, size, and seminatural habitat cover in the surrounding landscape affect multitaxa diversity in different AES types and assess their potential for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes.
Abstract
Agri-environmental schemes (AES) aim to restore biodiversity and biodiversity-mediated ecosystem services in landscapes impoverished by modern agriculture. However, a systematic, empirical evaluation of different AES types across multiple taxa and functional groups is missing. Within one orthogonal design, we studied sown flowering AES types with different temporal continuity, size, and landscape context and used calcareous grasslands as seminatural reference habitat. We measured species richness of 12 taxonomic groups (vascular plants, cicadas, orthopterans, bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies, flower visiting beetles, parasitoid wasps, carabid beetles, staphylinid beetles, and birds) representing 5 trophic levels. A total of 54,955 specimens were identified using traditional taxonomic methods, and bulk arthropod samples were identified through DNA metabarcoding, resulting in a total of 1,077 and 2,110 taxa, respectively. Species richness of most taxonomic groups, as well as multidiversity and richness of pollinators, increased with temporal continuity of AES types. Some groups responded to size and landscape context, but multidiversity and richness of pollinators and natural enemies were not affected. AES flowering fields supported different species assemblages than calcareous grasslands, but assemblages became more similar to those in seminatural grasslands with increasing temporal continuity. Our results indicate that AES flowering fields and seminatural grasslands function synergistically. Flowering fields support biodiversity even when they are relatively small and in landscapes with few remaining seminatural habitats. We therefore recommend a network of smaller, temporally continuous AES flowering fields of different ages, combined with permanent seminatural grasslands, to maximize benefits for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service delivery in agricultural landscapes.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: fabian.boetzl{at}uni-wuerzburg.de.
Author contributions: F.A.B., J.K., E.K., E.A.M., A.H., and I.S.-D. designed research; F.A.B., J.H., H.H., J.J., S.K., E.K., and M.P. performed research; F.A.B. analyzed data; and F.A.B., J.K., E.A.M., A.H., and I.S.-D. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no competing interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2016038118/-/DCSupplemental.
Data Accessibility
All data associated with this manuscript is available via the Dryad Digital Repository https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvh1 (44).
Change History
March 5, 2021: The figure callouts have been updated.
Published under the PNAS license.
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A multitaxa assessment of the effectiveness of agri-environmental schemes for biodiversity management
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- Agricultural Sciences
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