Abstract
Agri-environment schemes (AES) are key mechanisms to deliver conservation policy, and include management to provide resources for target taxa. Mobile species may move to areas where resources are increased, without this necessarily having an effect across the wider countryside or on populations over time. Most assessments of AES efficacy have been at small spatial scales, over short timescales, and shown varying results. We developed a survey design based on orthogonal gradients of AES management at local and landscape scales, which will enable the response of several taxa to be monitored. An evidence review of management effects on butterflies, birds and pollinating insects provided data to score AES options. Predicted gradients were calculated using AES uptake, weighted by the evidence scores. Predicted AES gradients for each taxon correlated strongly, and with the average gradient across taxa, supporting the co-location of surveys across different taxa.Nine 1 × 1 km survey squares were selected in each of four regional blocks with broadly homogenous background habitat characteristics. Squares in each block covered orthogonal contrasts across the range of AES gradients at local and landscape scales. This allows the effects of AES on species at each scale, and the interaction between scales, to be tested. AES options and broad habitats were mapped in field surveys, to verify predicted gradients which were based on AES option uptake data. The verified AES gradient had a strong positive relationship with the predicted gradient. AES gradients were broadly independent of background habitat within each block, likely allowing AES effects to be distinguished from potential effects of other habitat variables. Surveys of several mobile taxa are ongoing.This design will allow mobile taxa responses to AES to be tested in the surrounding countryside, as well as on land under AES management, and potentially in terms of population change over time. The design developed here provides a novel, pseudo-experimental approach for assessing the response of mobile species to gradients of management at two spatial scales. A similar design process could be applied in other regions that require a standardized approach to monitoring the impacts of management interventions on target taxa at landscape scales, if equivalent spatial data are available.
Highlights
The ongoing loss of biodiversity and impacts on ecosystem service provision (Powney et al, 2019) are major drivers of conservation policy
The amount and type of evidence available on the effects of agri-environment schemes (AES) management on mobile species differed between taxa
More maximum scores were attributed to the two bird functional groupings than either a. 1 km2 Strength of correlation
Summary
The ongoing loss of biodiversity and impacts on ecosystem service provision (Powney et al, 2019) are major drivers of conservation policy. Research into biodiversity responses to AES has largely focused on efficacy at the scale of specific management options (Geppert et al., 2020; Pywell et al, 2012) or farms (Staley et al, 2018), over short timescales and has shown varying results (Kleijn et al, 2011; Scheper et al, 2013) This scale of research is necessary to test and improve AES management prescriptions, and assess whether AES interventions benefit target taxa on land directly under AES management (Carvell et al, 2007; Staley et al, 2016a). If provision of resources under AES is effective, abun dance of target taxa may increase to the extent that populations spill over from habitats managed under AES into the surrounding country side This is hard to detect as it requires identifying and monitoring sites with contrasting levels of local and landscape AES uptake. Only a few studies have made tests of spill-over for pollinating insects (Carvell et al, 2015; Jonsson et al, 2015; Scheper et al, 2015), and none directly for other taxa
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
