Abstract
Biodiversity has undergone a major decline throughout recent decades, particularly in farmland. Agricultural practices are recognized to be an important pressure on farmland biodiversity, and pesticides are suspected to be one of the main causes of this decline in biodiversity. As part of the national plan for reduction of pesticides use (Ecophyto), the French ministry of agriculture launched the 500 ENI (nonintended effects) monitoring program in 2012 in order to assess the unintended effects of agricultural practices, including pesticide use, on biodiversity represented by several taxonomic groups of interest for farmers. This long‐term program monitors the biodiversity of nontargeted species (earthworms, plants, coleoptera, and birds), together with a wide range of annual data on agricultural practices (crop rotation, soil tillage, weed control, fertilizers, chemical treatments, etc.). Other parameters (e.g., landscape and climatic characteristics) are also integrated as covariates during the analyses. This monitoring program is expected to improve our understanding of the relative contribution of the different drivers of population and community trends. Here, we present the experience of setting up the 500 ENI network for this ambitious and highly complex monitoring program, as well as the type of data it collects. The issue of data quality control and some first results are discussed. With the aim of being useful to readers who would like to set up similar monitoring schemes, we also address some questions that have arisen following the first five years of the implementation phase of the program.
Highlights
Biodiversity in farmland has undergone a major decline in recent decades (Benton, Bryant, Cole, & Crick, 2002; Donald, Green, & Heath, 2001; Green, 2005; Hallmann et al, 2017; Van Dyck, Van Strien, Maes, & Van Swaay, 2009)
To analyze community composition, which is in some cases more informative than a standard biodiversity index, we propose the use of multivariate methods such as canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) (Ter Braak, 1986) or redundancy analysis (RDA) (Van Den Wollenberg, 1977)
The results demonstrate that this difference is primarily due to a greater number of nature-value species in organic versus conventional field margins
Summary
Biodiversity in farmland has undergone a major decline in recent decades (Benton, Bryant, Cole, & Crick, 2002; Donald, Green, & Heath, 2001; Green, 2005; Hallmann et al, 2017; Van Dyck, Van Strien, Maes, & Van Swaay, 2009). While several holistic approaches, such as agri-environmental schemes (AES), have been proposed and implemented to halt and even reverse biodiversity declines (Batáry, Dicks, Kleijn, & Sutherland, 2015; Vickery, Bradbury, Henderson, Eaton, & Grice, 2004), pesticide reduction remains the most important concern, and a primary goal for most European governments and European policies In this context, and in accordance with the Council Directive 2009/128/EC that established a framework for Community action for the sustainable use of pesticides, the Ecophyto scheme was launched in France in 2008, with the general aim to reduce pesticide use. Several initiatives were put in place, such as training farmers in the responsible use of pesticides, the development of an extensive network of pilot farms to demonstrate good practice (“Dephy farms,” Lechenet, Makowski, Py, & Munier-Jolain, 2016), a control program of all the sprayers that are used for the application of phytosanitary products, and the publication of "plant health bulletins" that alert farmers on pest outbreaks so that they can spray only when necessary. Despite these initiatives, no significant decrease in pesticide use has been detected in France so far (Hossard, Guichard, Pelosi, & Makowski, 2017)
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