Abstract
Agricultural intensification poses a major threat to the conservation of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. Since non-crop habitats are regarded as important refuges for farmland biodiversity, various greening measures have been proposed to halt biodiversity loss. However, the effectiveness of these measures for biodiversity conservation is still under debate. Therefore, we here compared ground-dwelling beetle (Coleoptera) assemblages of different non-crop habitats (field margins, set-aside fields sown with wildflowers, and permanent grassland fallows) and wheat fields within an intensively used agricultural landscape in western Germany. Taxonomic diversity of Carabidae, Staphylinidae and other coleopteran families and their conservation value were higher in all non-crop habitats than on wheat fields. Surprisingly, though, different types of non-crop habitats did not differ in species richness or the number of threatened species. Thus, field margins and sown wildflower fields were as effective in promoting beetle diversity as grassland fallows. However, different non-crop habitats supported different species assemblages, and several species, in particular especially large ones, were restricted to grassland fallows. These results suggest that different greening measures are effective in promoting the biodiversity of beetles, and that permanent grassland fallows are essential for nature conservation. The fact that habitat types harbored different assemblages stresses the need to combine a variety of greening measures to yield the highest benefit for biodiversity.
Highlights
Due to the growing demand of the human population for agricultural products, farmland management has intensified considerably in recent decades, resulting in a simplification of agricultural landscapes (Tscharntke et al 2012)
The most numerous families were the ground-dwelling beetle families Carabidae and Staphylinidae, which accounted for about 81% of all individuals
Eight species accounted for 43 % of all individuals: Philonthus cognatus (Staphylinidae; 2439 individuals), Poecilus cupreus (Carabidae; 2321), Anchomenus dorsalis (Carabidae; 2210), Tachyporus hypnorum (Staphylinidae; 1832), Pterostichus melanarius (Carabidae; 1618), Bembidion lampros (Carabidae; 1311), Drusilla canaliculata (Staphylinidae; 1136), and Tachinus signatus (Staphylinidae; 1083)
Summary
Due to the growing demand of the human population for agricultural products, farmland management has intensified considerably in recent decades, resulting in a simplification of agricultural landscapes (Tscharntke et al 2012). Agricultural intensification includes an increasing use of agrochemicals and resources, the conversion of semi-natural habitats into arable land, and the dominance of few crop species on ever larger fields (Benton et al 2003; Tscharntke et al 2012). Non-crop habitats may connect isolated patches of natural vegetation and contribute to a heterogeneous environment in agricultural landscapes (Kovács-Hostyánszki et al 2011) They may comprise important biodiversity reservoirs, as they provide refuges for species not able to survive in crop fields themselves or which have to migrate for overwintering (Tscharntke et al 2005). The importance of non-crop habitats in agricultural landscapes has already been established for several arthropod taxa (e.g. Clough et al 2005)
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