Weed and invertebrate community compositions in arable farmland

Abstract

A large proportion of the land surface area of Great Britain (GB) is used for arable agriculture. Due to changes in farm management practices over the last 50 years, there have been marked declines in the abun- dance of arable wildlife groups of conservation importance, including weeds, invertebrates and birds. Here we ask whether changes in weed species composition, driven by changes in management, such as a change in crop or a modification in herbicide regime, might be expected to lead to changes in the species compositions of other wildlife groups, including invertebrates. Using multivariate analy- ses, on data from eight crop and herbicide management groups sampled across 266 arable fields, we show that the weed composition changes with the crop and herbicide management adopted and the invertebrate composition changes with the crop grown. We conclude that each conventional crop sampled had a unique composition of weeds and invertebrates, and expect this to be true for all conventional arable crops. Changes in weed species com- position, driven by changes in crop or herbicide management, will lead to changes in the compositions of invertebrates, and possibly other wildlife groups. However, these changes will probably be buffered by the effect of functional redundancy, the crop and dispersal.