Landscape Simplification Research Articles

Farm and landscape factors interact to affect the supply of pollination services

Farms can harbor substantial biodiversity, which in turn sustains the supply of ecosystem services. The effectiveness of farm management to enhance biodiversity, however, may be modified by land cover in the surrounding landscape beyond a farmer’s direct control. We examined how landscape pattern and farm management affect the abundance and diversity of native bees visiting highbush blueberry in Vermont, USA. We quantified landscape pattern at multiple scales and created an agricultural intensity index that represents farm management practices such as pesticide use, mowed and grain crop area. We observed native bee visitation to assess the supply of pollination service provided to blueberry growers. Across 15 farms, 84 wild bee species were observed visiting highbush blueberry, almost a third of bee species recorded in Vermont. Visitation rate, abundance and species richness increased with the amount of natural area surrounding farms. Less intensively managed farms had higher levels of bee visitation, abundance and a more diverse bee community. Bee communities and the pollination services they provide are influenced by interactions between local management and landscape pattern. In particular, intensive farm management appears to compound the negative effects of landscape simplification. To support native pollinators on their farms, growers should consider farming approaches in the context of the broader landscape.

Historical trajectories in land use pattern and grassland ecosystem services in two European alpine landscapes.

Land use and spatial patterns which reflect social-ecological legacies control ecosystem service (ES) supply. Yet, temporal changes in ES bundles associated with land use change are little studied. We developed original metrics to quantify synchronous historical variations in spatial patterns of land use and ES supply capacity, and demonstrated their use for two mountain grassland landscapes. Consistent with other European mountains, land use dynamics from the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century resulted in increased landscape heterogeneity, followed by homogenisation. In the persistently grassy landscape of Lautaret in France, landscape multifunctionality-the provision of multiple ES-coincided with greatest landscape heterogeneity and within-patch diversity in ecosystem services in the 1950-1970s. In the more complex Austrian landscape, where since the nineteenth century intensive production has concentrated in the valley and steep slopes have been abandoned, grassland landscape-level multifunctionality and spatial heterogeneity across grasslands have decreased. Increasing spatial heterogeneity across grasslands until the 1970s was paralleled at both sites by increasing fine-grained spatial variability for individual ES, but subsequent landscape simplification has promoted coarse-grained ES patterns This novel analysis of landscape-scale turnover highlighted how spatial patterns for individual ES scale to multiple grassland ES, depending on the nature of land use spatial variability. Under current socio-economic trends, sustaining or re-establishing fine-grained landscapes is often not feasible, thus future landscape planning and policies might focus on managing landscape and regional-scale multifunctionality. Also, the trends towards decreasing cultural ES and increasing regulating ES suggest a contradiction with current social demand and regional policies.

COMPORTAMENTO DO FOGO EM DIFERENTES PERÍODOS E CONFIGURAÇÕES DE UMA PAISAGEM NO NORDESTE DE PORTUGAL

Neste trabalho aborda-se a importância do planejamento do uso e ocupação do solo, e do manejo dos sistemas florestais na redução do perigo de incêndio, analisando-se o comportamento do fogo em relação às alterações na paisagem da Deilão, nordeste de Portugal. Foram utilizadas cadeias de Markov e modelos de autômatos celulares como metodologia para projetar a paisagem no futuro. FlamMap foi utilizado para simular o comportamento do fogo. De acordo com as métricas da paisagem obtidas no Fragstats, observou-se que os cenários e projeções em Deilão têm uma tendência à simplificação da paisagem, o que pode facilitar a ocorrência de incêndios maiores e mais graves. A análise dos resultados indicou uma tendência ao aumento do perigo de incêndios na região, em grande parte, ocasionado pela expansão de plantações contínuas de florestas. Para evitar tais impactos, o manejo florestal e ordenamento da paisagem devem ser modificados a fim de se reduzir o acúmulo de materiais combustíveis.

Spatial patterns of degraded tropical forest and biodiversity restoration over 70-years of succession

Landscape metrics have often been used to analyse the spatial dynamics of habitat fragmentation accompanying forest loss. However, there are few studies of the spatial dynamics of natural forest succession, especially over periods longer than the operational period of imaging satellites. This study applies spatial metrics to understand the spatial processes of a 70-year tropical secondary forest succession in Hong Kong, since World War 2. The highest rate of forest regeneration at 11% a year from 1989 to 2001 occurred when the landscape achieved greatest habitat diversity and juxtapositioning of habitat patches. This rapid regeneration occurred by infilling from remnant forest in adjacent valleys rather than by an advance along a broad forest front, and led to simplification of the landscape and declining habitat diversity. It was also accompanied by declines in species richness and abundance in regenerated forest patches. Thus both habitat and woody plant species diversity show a humped trend over the successional period as disconnected forest patches amalgamate, and shade-intolerant pioneers are shaded out by taller pioneers. From this point onwards, the birds of mixed habitats including bulbuls and hwamei known to disperse seed in the study area, may become less effective as forest patches consolidate, and only a few forest mammals remain. The observed improved connectivity within forest patches and reduced edge disturbances accompanying landscape simplification provide better conditions for dispersion within forest of light-intolerant climax species from the oldest, species-rich valley sites to the newly regenerated areas. However, in addition to the loss of forest dispersal agents, other natural dispersal agents such as gravity, flash floods and slope wash involving downward processes may be ineffective, as forest has regenerated upwards to higher elevations. Progression to a mature, biodiverse and stable forest ecosystem may depend on introduction of dispersal agents other than those which have operated over recent decades. Forest patches with high internal connectivity, indicated by high Mean radius of Gyration (MRG) and low Mean Perimeter-to-Area Ratio (MPAR) would appear to offer the best movement opportunities and least disturbance to such introductions.

Identifying the landscape drivers of agricultural insecticide use leveraging evidence from 100,000 fields

Agricultural landscape intensification has enabled food production to meet growing demand. However, there are concerns that more simplified cropland with lower crop diversity, less noncrop habitat, and larger fields results in increased use of pesticides due to a lack of natural pest control and more homogeneous crop resources. Here, we use data on crop production and insecticide use from over 100,000 field-level observations from Kern County, California, encompassing the years 2005-2013 to test if crop diversity, field size, and cropland extent affect insecticide use in practice. Overall, we find that higher crop diversity does reduce insecticide use, but the relationship is strongly influenced by the differences in crop types between diverse and less diverse landscapes. Further, we find insecticide use increases with increasing field size. The effect of cropland extent is distance-dependent, with nearby cropland decreasing insecticide use, whereas cropland further away increases insecticide use. This refined spatial perspective provides unique understanding of how different components of landscape simplification influence insecticide use over space and for different crops. Our results indicate that neither the traditionally conceived "simplified" nor "complex" agricultural landscape is most beneficial to reducing insecticide inputs; reality is far more complex.

Trait‐matching and mass effect determine the functional response of herbivore communities to land‐use intensification

Summary Trait‐based approaches represent a promising way to understand how trophic interactions shape animal communities. The approach relies on the identification of the traits that mediate the linkages between adjacent trophic levels, i.e. ‘trait‐matching’. Yet, how trait‐matching explains the abundance and diversity of animal communities has been barely explored. This question may be particularly critical in the context of land‐use intensification, currently threatening biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. We collected a large dataset on plant and grasshopper traits from communities living in 204 grasslands, in an intensively managed agricultural landscape. We used a multi‐trait approach to quantify the relative contributions of trait‐matching and land‐use intensification acting at both local and landscape scales on grasshopper functional diversity. We considered two key independent functional traits: incisor strength and body size of grasshopper species. Incisor strength, a resource‐acquisition trait, strongly matches grasshopper feeding niche. Body size correlates with mobility traits, and may determine grasshopper dispersal abilities. Plant functional diversity positively impacted the diversity of grasshopper resource‐acquisition traits, according to the degree of trait‐matching observed between plants and herbivores. However, this positive effect was significantly higher in old grasslands. In addition, the presence of specific habitats in the landscape (i.e. wood and alfalfa) strongly enhanced grasshopper resource‐acquisition trait diversity in the focal grassland. Finally, grasshopper body size increased with landscape simplification, although the response was modulated by local factors such as soil depth. Trait‐matching between plants and herbivores was an important driver explaining the abundance and diversity of resource‐acquisition traits within grasshopper communities. However, the presence of specific habitats in the surrounding landscape had also a strong influence on herbivore functional diversity in grasslands. Our study suggests that also mass effects are a central mechanism promoting higher functional diversity within animal communities in highly disturbed anthropogenic systems. A lay summary is available for this article.

Landscape simplification weakens the association between terrestrial producer and consumer diversity in Europe.

Land-use change is one of the primary drivers of species loss, yet little is known about its effect on other components of biodiversity that may be at risk. Here, we ask whether, and to what extent, landscape simplification, measured as the percentage of arable land in the landscape, disrupts the functional and phylogenetic association between primary producers and consumers. Across seven European regions, we inferred the potential associations (functional and phylogenetic) between host plants and butterflies in 561 seminatural grasslands. Local plant diversity showed a strong bottom-up effect on butterfly diversity in the most complex landscapes, but this effect disappeared in simple landscapes. The functional associations between plant and butterflies are, therefore, the results of processes that act not only locally but are also dependent on the surrounding landscape context. Similarly, landscape simplification reduced the phylogenetic congruence among host plants and butterflies indicating that closely related butterflies become more generalist in the resources used. These processes occurred without any detectable change in species richness of plants or butterflies along the gradient of arable land. The structural properties of ecosystems are experiencing substantial erosion, with potentially pervasive effects on ecosystem functions and future evolutionary trajectories. Loss of interacting species might trigger cascading extinction events and reduce the stability of trophic interactions, as well as influence the longer term resilience of ecosystem functions. This underscores a growing realization that species richness is a crude and insensitive metric and that both functional and phylogenetic associations, measured across multiple trophic levels, are likely to provide additional and deeper insights into the resilience of ecosystems and the functions they provide.

黄河中下游农业景观中景观简化对传粉昆虫多样性的影响——以巩义市为例

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 黄河中下游农业景观中景观简化对传粉昆虫多样性的影响——以巩义市为例 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201511292392 作者: 作者单位: 河南大学,河南大学,河南大学,河南大学 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金资助项目（41371195，41071118） Effects of landscape simplification on pollinator diversity in agricultural areas near the lower reaches of the Yellow River: a case study Author: Affiliation: Henan University,Henan University,, Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:在农业景观中，传粉昆虫的生存繁衍与半自然生境的面积大小有关。集约化生产方式使半自然生境比例逐渐减少，农田比例不断增加，随着景观简化梯度的变化（农田比例逐渐增大），传粉昆虫群落多样性将会发生怎样的变化？选择黄河中下游典型农区巩义市为研究区域，采用诱捕盘法（Pan traps）进行农田、林地的传粉昆虫取样，以21个样点作为景观简化梯度（农田比例范围5%-86%）的呈现，基于每个样点的传粉昆虫多度和丰富度变化来探究景观简化对传粉昆虫多样性的影响。结果显示：区内累计捕获传粉昆虫39660头，优势类群包括双翅目（Diptera）、膜翅目（Hymenoptera）、鞘翅目（Coleoptera）等。采用逐步回归分析及线性拟合后发现景观简化程度与传粉昆虫多度和丰富度呈显著负相关（P<0.05）；景观简化对传粉昆虫类群间的影响也是有差异的，其中对鞘翅目多度的影响最为密切（R2=0.27），同时对膜翅目和双翅目也有较大影响（R2=0.14、R2=0.11），景观简化与鳞翅目多度呈正相关；随景观简化的程度加深，农田生境中膜翅目多度呈显著下降趋势（P<0.05），而林地中膜翅目多度变化不明显。在未来的景观规划中，应着重考虑传粉昆虫中鞘翅目类群的栖息地变化及食物资源状况。依据研究结果建议林地生境中应注重保护现有的自然植被群落，在人工林中可以种植一定面积的蜜粉源植物；农田生境内对杂草群落、半自然生境斑块进行合理规划的基础上，还可以种植线性景观植物作为传粉昆虫的食物源。 Abstract:In agricultural landscapes, the survival and reproduction of pollinators depends on the size of semi-natural habitats. The intensive agricultural production model has caused a decrease in semi-natural habitats and an increase in the proportion of land dedicated to agriculture. This study aimed to quantify any changes in the diversity of pollinators following this increase in the proportion of land dedicated to agriculture. Our study area was in Gongyi City, which is a typical agricultural region located near the lower reaches of the Yellow River. Twenty-one study sites were collected from the northeast to the central area. Pan traps were used to capture pollinators from farmland and woodland habitats. Using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), we calculated the optional characteristics scales of the pollinators and landscape features by 500m, where landscape simplifying was determined in terms of farmland proportion. Finally, the proportion of farmland was chosen as the basis of landscape simplification, which provided us with 21 sample points as the simplified gradient of the landscape (the ratio of farmland should be between 5% and 86%). We then explored the impact of landscape simplification on pollinator diversity, which was based on the species abundance and richness of pollinators at each sample point. We caught a total of 39660 individual pollinators. The most common orders caught included Diptera (26236 individuals), Hymenoptera (13893 individuals), and Coleoptera (2033 individuals). Stepwise analysis and linear fitting showed that landscape simplification directly influenced the richness and abundance of pollinators, with greater proportions of farmland significantly negatively correlating with the richness and abundance of species caught (P<0.05). The effect of landscape simplification on different pollinator groups was variable. The effect of landscape simplification was most significant on Coleoptera (R2=0.27), followed by Hymenoptera (R2=0.14), and Diptera (R2=0.11). Landscape simplification was correlated with an increase in the number of Lepidoptera individuals caught (R2=0.09). Hymenoptera abundance was significantly decreased in farmland habitats, while there was no observable change in Hymenopteran abundance in woodlands. Overall, as the proportion of farmland increased, we observed significant changes in the abundance and richness of species caught. Our results showed that the proportion of farmland directly affected the abundance and richness of pollinators caught. In certain areas the balance between farmlands and semi-natural habitats is inappropriate and needs to be carefully reconsidered by decision makers and stakeholders. During land use planning, there should be an emphasis on the habitat and food resources needed by the Coleoptera taxa of pollinating insects in particular. Our results also suggested that more attention needed to be paid to the protection of existing natural vegetation communities in woodland habitats, while nectar-producing plants could be planted in artificial forests. Moreover, linear landscape plants could be planted as a food source for pollinators alongside farmlands. To protect natural habitats, such as weed communities, linear artificial landscapes of a suitable size could be planted on the boundary of farmlands, which would have a significant ecological impact and help to protect resource insects, such as Hymenopterans. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Alpine landscape and canopy cover from 1973 to 2011: are roe and red deer population dynamics linked?

Context Land-use change may represent a major driver for wildlife population trends in most ecosystems all over the world. In addition to land abandonment and forest management transformation in remote areas of developed countries, such as the European mountains, the intensification of human activities has, by and large, affected the settlement opportunities for wildlife species. Aims What changes occurred in the structure and extent of land use between 1973 and 2011 in the Central Eastern Alps, Italy? Are the abundance indices of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) driven by these landscape transformations? Is there any relationship between the increase in red deer and the decrease in roe deer abundance? Methods The study was conducted in a 1335-km2 area (Central Eastern Alps, Italy). Through GIS photo interpretation techniques and patch analysis tools, we determined land-use changes between 1973 and 2011. Correlations between environmental modifications and climatic conditions, as well as between roe and red deer abundance indices (i.e. catch per unit effort (CPUE) and hunting bag data, respectively) were investigated for the 1973–2011 period by implementing linear mixed models. Key results The metrics thus calculated revealed a homogenisation of the woodland area and a general landscape simplification. By examining the effects of the climatic factors supposedly affecting population growth rate, roe and red deer trends seemed to be driven also by land-use evolution. Indeed, in the 1973–2011 period a negative trend in the availability of open areas below the tree line (–4.6%) and of agricultural zones (–1.9%) seemed to disfavour roe deer, while a fast increase in woodlands (+7.8%), scrublands (+3.3%) and canopy cover (+7.9%) was reported to be concomitant to red deer range expansion and density increase. Moreover, red deer growth rate impacted on roe deer population dynamics. Conclusions and implications Given the ongoing land-use changes, their effect on roe and red deer population trends and the competition issue between them, these results may help managers to apply an effective adaptive-management planning technique for target locations to keep the ecosystem balanced.

A Landscape View of Agricultural Insecticide Use across the Conterminous US from 1997 through 2012.

Simplification of agricultural landscapes is expected to have positive effects on many crop pests and negative effects on their natural enemies, potentially leading to increased pest pressure, decreased crop yield, and increased insecticide use. While many intermediate links in this causal chain have empirical support, there is mixed evidence for ultimate relationships between landscape simplification, crop yield, and insecticide use, especially at large spatial and temporal scales. We explored relationships between landscape simplification (proportion of a county in harvested cropland) and insecticide use (proportion of harvested cropland treated with insecticides), using county-level data from the US Census of Agriculture and a variety of standard and spatiotemporal regression techniques. The best model indicated that insecticide use across the US has increased between 1997 and 2012, was strongly dependent on the crops grown in a county, increased with average farm income and size, and increased with annual growing degree days. After accounting for those variables, and other unidentified spatial and temporal structure in the data, there remained a statistically significant, moderate, positive relationship between insecticide use and landscape simplification. These results lend general support to the causal chain outlined above, and to the notion that a landscape perspective is useful for managing ecosystem services that are provided by mobile organisms and valuable to agriculture.

Towards sustainable rural landscapes? a multivariate analysis of the structure of traditional tree cropping systems along a human pressure gradient in a mediterranean region

The worldwide increase of human pressure in rural areas has resulted in a progressive fragmentation of agro-forest landscapes. Relatively few studies have identified processes of landscape modification and patch fragmentation reflecting long-term human activity from those caused by recent urbanization stimulated by economic development, population growth and improved accessibility of rural areas. In rural districts dominated by high-quality crop mosaics and exposed to increasing levels of human pressure, urbanization-driven changes in the use of land have determined complex and non-linear processes of landscape fragmentation which deserve further investigation. Multidimensional procedures and data mining are appropriate to explore such transformations, basing on a comprehensive assessment of landscape metrics. The present study investigates changes in land-use and landscape structure (2000–2008) in three districts of Latium (central Italy) featuring different cropping systems, physiographic attributes and level of human pressure. A principal component analysis was run to identify a core set of metrics aimed at (i) evaluating the role of traditional cropping systems in the preservation of traditional agro-forest systems and (ii) inferring the relationship between spatial heterogeneity in rural landscapes and socio-ecological processes of change. Our results indicate that crop intensification has contributed to landscape homogeneity and simplification in all areas studied, in contrast with the effects of urban expansion resulting in a more fragmented and diversified landscape with relict tree crop patches. The findings of this study clarify the contribution of traditional tree crop systems to sustainable structures and functions of rural landscapes by preserving the place-specific eco-mosaic complexity.

Crop Diversity and Land Simplification Effects on Pest Damage in Northern China

Agricultural intensification has brought obvious increases in the extent and intensity of agricultural activities, which simultaneously led to rapid changes in landscape patterns. However, the relationship between agricultural intensification and pest damage was poorly known at the landscape scale, especially in China. We conducted an analysis to examine the relationship between agricultural intensification and pest damage of six pest species by using statistical data from1987 to 2012 in China. Results showed that high crop diversity could significantly suppress damage of oligophagous pests such as cereal aphids, rice stem borers, and corn borers while having no effects on polyphagous pests such as cotton bollworms and armyworms except for cotton aphids. Landscape simplification has no significant effects on pest damage except cotton bollworms, and there was no interaction between crop diversity and landscape simplification. Moreover, the relationship between crop diversity and crop yields per hectare was significantly negative. The canonical correspondence analysis ordination diagram showed that pest species responded to the crop species differently. These results suggest that crop diversity have potential for sustainable pest management with complete prevention of pest damage on crops, and it is environment friendly.

Designing agricultural landscapes for biodiversity-based ecosystem services

Sustainable and resilient agricultural systems are needed to feed and fuel a growing human population. However, the current model of agricultural intensification which produces high yields has also resulted in a loss of biodiversity, ecological function, and critical ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. A key consequence of agricultural intensification is landscape simplification, where once heterogeneous landscapes contain increasingly fewer crop and non-crop habitats. Landscape simplification exacerbates biodiversity losses which leads to reductions in ecosystem services on which agriculture depends. In recent decades, considerable research has focused on mitigating these negative impacts, primarily via management of habitats to promote biodiversity and enhance services at the local scale. While it is well known that local and landscape factors interact, modifying overall landscape structure is seldom considered due to logistical constraints. I propose that the loss of ecosystem services due to landscape simplification can only be addressed by a concerted effort to fundamentally redesign agricultural landscapes. Designing agricultural landscapes will require that scientists work with stakeholders to determine the mix of desired ecosystem services, evaluate current landscape structure in light of those goals, and implement targeted modifications to achieve them. I evaluate the current status of landscape design, ranging from fundamental ecological principles to resulting guidelines and socioeconomic tools. While research gaps remain, the time is right for ecologists to engage with other disciplines, stakeholders, and policymakers in education and advocacy to foster agricultural landscape design for sustainable and resilient biodiversity services.

Landscape Simplification Constrains Adult Size in a Native Ground-Nesting Bee

Bees provide critical pollination services to 87% of angiosperm plants; however, the reliability of these services may become threatened as bee populations decline. Agricultural intensification, resulting in the simplification of environments at the landscape scale, greatly changes the quality and quantity of resources available for female bees to provision their offspring. These changes may alter or constrain the tradeoffs in maternal investment allocation between offspring size, number and sex required to maximize fitness. Here we investigate the relationship between landscape scale agricultural intensification and the size and number of individuals within a wild ground nesting bee species, Andrena nasonii. We show that agricultural intensification at the landscape scale was associated with a reduction in the average size of field collected A. nasonii adults in highly agricultural landscapes but not with the number of individuals collected. Small females carried significantly smaller (40%) pollen loads than large females, which is likely to have consequences for subsequent offspring production and fitness. Thus, landscape simplification is likely to constrain allocation of resources to offspring through a reduction in the overall quantity, quality and distribution of resources.

Agricultural landscape simplification reduces natural pest control: A quantitative synthesis

Numerous studies show that landscape simplification reduces abundance and diversity of natural enemies in agroecosystems, but its effect on natural pest control remains poorly quantified. Further, natural enemy impacts on pest populations have usually been estimated for a limited number of taxa and have not considered interactions among predator species. In a quantitative synthesis with data collected from several cropping systems in Europe and North America, we analyzed how the level and within-field spatial stability of natural pest control services was related to the simplification of the surrounding landscape. All studies used aphids as a model species and exclusion cages to measure aphid pest control. Landscape simplification was quantified by the proportion of cultivated land within a 1km radius around each plot. We found a consistent negative effect of landscape simplification on the level of natural pest control, despite interactions among enemies. Average level of pest control was 46% lower in homogeneous landscapes dominated by cultivated land, as compared with more complex landscapes. Landscape simplification did not affect the amount of positive or negative interactions among ground-dwelling and vegetation-dwelling predators, or the within-field stability of pest control. Our synthesis demonstrates that agricultural intensification through landscape simplification has negative effects on the level of natural pest control with important implications for management to maintain and enhance ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. Specifically, preserving and restoring semi-natural habitats emerges as a fundamental first step to maintain and enhance pest control services provided by predatory arthropods to agriculture.

Farmland bird diversity in contrasting agricultural landscapes of southwestern Poland

Breeding bird communities were investigated in three contrasting agricultural landscapes of SW Poland to assess differences in abundance and determine the importance of field margins for bird populations. Counts were conducted in twelve 50-ha plots differing in landscape structure (density of all, permanent and shrubby field margins, and occurrence of high vegetation). Maps of bird distributions were used to analyze the associations of birds with four habitats: cropped fields, permanent fallows, field margins, mid-field woodlots. Ordination and classification techniques were applied to check between-plot differences in community composition. All landscapes supported high densities of total communities and farmland specialists. Species richness and bird densities were significantly related to field margin aggregations and arranged along a decreasing gradient of landscape heterogeneity: shrubby mosaic, open mosaic, open plain plots. Between-plot differences suggest that the occurrence of non-cropped habitats is more important for bird abundance than diversification of land-use. PCA and cluster analysis identified differences in species composition between the landscape types; and RDA revealed the significance of the shrubby and permanent margins for the community structure. The aggregation of shrubby margins seems to be a particularly useful predictor of bird abundance and overall biodiversity. Most species and breeding pairs were preferentially associated with margins, despite the habitat covering merely 4% of the area. The data confirmed that landscape heterogeneity with mosaic seminatural field margins is responsible for the persistence of internationally important bird populations in Poland. In such complex arable systems, preventing landscape simplification is the most effective method of biodiversity protection.

Diverse landscapes have a higher abundance and species richness of spring wild bees by providing complementary floral resources over bees’ foraging periods

Context Anthropogenic landscape simplification and natural habitat loss can negatively affect wild bees. Alternatively, anthropogenic land-use change may diversify landscapes, creating complementary habitats that maintain overall resource continuity and diversity.

Effects of Hedges and Herbaceous Cover on Passerine Communities in Mediterranean Olive Groves

Abstract. In recent decades, agricultural intensification and landscape simplification have dramatically affected farmland biodiversity. To reduce this trend, agri-environmental schemes (AES) of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) were launched in the European Union in the early 1990s. Since then an effort has been made to asses the effectiveness of these measures, but, in the Mediterranean region, where olive groves are among the predominant crops, the effectiveness of AESs to maintain farmland biodiversity remains poorly evaluated. In conventional olive farming, the only AES now in practice are the implementation of herbaceous, non-crop vegetation within crops (i.e. ground covers) aimed at preventing soil erosion, and the maintenance of hedges. These practices, when applied separately, can increase structural complexity, likely benefitting farmland biodiversity at different spatial scales; however, little is known about the potential synergistic effects when these measures are applied in combination in...

Erratum to: Bumble bees show trait-dependent vulnerability to landscape simplification

In the original publication of this article (Biodivers Conserv 24:3469–3489, 2015), we mistakenly state that males of the subgenus Bombus sensu stricto can be determined to species based on genital morphology, while in fact the determination was based on coat characteristics. This does not allow for a separation of the species B. lucorum, B. magnus and B. cryptarum with certainty. Most males (97 %) were determined to B. terrestris, indicating that this species dominated also among workers. Because these species are both morphologically similar and share categorical traits they were, as stated in the paper, combined in all analyses, except for those regarding phylogenetic signals.

A consistent positive association between landscape simplification and insecticide use across the Midwestern US from 1997 through 2012

During 2007, counties across the Midwestern US with relatively high levels of landscape simplification (i.e., widespread replacement of seminatural habitats with cultivated crops) had relatively high crop-pest abundances which, in turn, were associated with relatively high insecticide application. These results suggested a positive relationship between landscape simplification and insecticide use, mediated by landscape effects on crop pests or their natural enemies. A follow-up study, in the same region but using different statistical methods, explored the relationship between landscape simplification and insecticide use between 1987 and 2007, and concluded that the relationship varied substantially in sign and strength across years. Here, we explore this relationship from 1997 through 2012, using a single dataset and two different analytical approaches. We demonstrate that, when using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, the relationship between landscape simplification and insecticide use is, indeed, quite variable over time. However, the residuals from OLS models show strong spatial autocorrelation, indicating spatial structure in the data not accounted for by explanatory variables, and violating a standard assumption of OLS. When modeled using spatial regression techniques, relationships between landscape simplification and insecticide use were consistently positive between 1997 and 2012, and model fits were dramatically improved. We argue that spatial regression methods are more appropriate for these data, and conclude that there remains compelling correlative support for a link between landscape simplification and insecticide use in the Midwestern US. We discuss the limitations of inference from this and related studies, and suggest improved data collection campaigns for better understanding links between landscape structure, crop-pest pressure, and pest-management practices.