Ecological impacts of early 21st century agricultural change in Europe – A review

Stoate, Chris; Báldi, András; Beja, Pedro; Boatman, N. D.; Herzon, Irina; Doorn, A.M. van; Snoo, G.R. de; Rákosy, László; Ramwell, Carmel

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.07.005

Cited by 1,088 publications

(764 citation statements)

References 263 publications

(281 reference statements)

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“…Another important aspect has to do with the fact that the intensification of agricultural systems leads to a loss of plant biodiversity (Storkey & Westbury, 2007;Stoate et al, 2009;José-Maria et al, 2010;Sans et al, 2013), which threatens the sustainability of the services provided by a current and modern agriculture. Also, the effect of climate change on organisms and on their geographical distribution (Walther et al, 2002) may influence this dynamic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study of Autumn-Winter Weeds in Portugal and Its Ecological Preferences

Ramôa

Silva

Vasconcelos³

et al. 2015

Planta daninha

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-The conclusion of the dam project located in Alqueva, in Southern Portugal, has resulted in a significant increase of new irrigated areas, since 2006. This has meant that, in recent years, there have been progressive flora changes in farming systems traditionally implemented in the Alentejo region. The present work has analyzed the weed flora in an early stage of these changes, and the impact of environmental factors on the distribution of natural vegetation under Mediterranean climate conditions in the influence area of Alqueva. In 2007, 105 floristic surveys were carried out in autumn-winter crop plots or other soil use, and 264 species were identified. Families with higher expression were: Asteraceae, Poaceae, and Fabaceae. Only three species have been identified in more than half of farms, Avena sterilis, Phalaris minor and Lolium rigidum and they were part of the 15 species that revealed high and very high infestation degrees. Soil texture and extractable phosphorus have been determined as active ecological factors, according to the method of ecological profiles and Mutual Information. Therefore, these factores were those with the greatest influence on the species distribution. L. rigidum distribution showed to be associated with medium soil texture and A. sterilis distribution also showed to be associated with medium and fine soil texture soils, without showing ecological preference by extractable phosphorus. The distribution of P. minor was not related to the soil texture but showed preference for soils with medium phosphorus content.Keywords: spontaneous flora, Mediterranean climate, ecological profiles, active factors, texture, extractable phosphorus. Palavras-chave: vegetação espontânea, clima mediterrâneo, perfis ecológicos, fatores ativos, textura, fósforo extraível. RESUMO -A concretização do projeto da barragem do

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study of Autumn-Winter Weeds in Portugal and Its Ecological Preferences

Ramôa

Silva

Vasconcelos³

et al. 2015

Planta daninha

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“…However, biodiversity in the region is threatened by a series of complex socio-economic changes, including potential changes in land use. These changes include land abandonment and agricultural intensification (Bouma et al 1998;Stoate et al 2009;Akeroyd and Page 2011), both of which have been observed to negatively affect biodiversity elsewhere in Europe (Suarez-Seoane et al 2002;Verhulst et al 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing robust field survey protocols in landscape ecology: a case study on birds, plants and butterflies

et al. 2014

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Sustainable land management requires scientists to provide reliable data on diversity distribution patterns. Resource restrictions limit the affordable sampling effort, both with respect to number of survey sites and amount of effort per site. We compared different levels of survey effort in a case study in Central Romania, varying the number of repeats per site and number of survey sites. Target taxa were plants, birds and butterflies. For plants, we surveyed three 10 m 2 plots and ten plots of 1 m 2 at each site. For birds, we used point counts and for butterflies Pollard walks, in both cases with four repeats. We fitted hierarchical community models to estimate true species richness per site. Estimates of true species richness per site strongly correlated with observed species richness. However, hierarchical community models yielded unrealistically high estimates of true species richness per site, hence we used observed richness for further analyses. For each species group, we compared diversity indices from subsets of the dataset with the full dataset. Findings obtained with a reduced survey effort reflected well those obtained with full effort. Moreover, we conducted a power analysis to assess how the number of survey sites affected the minimum detectable effect of landscape heterogeneity on species richness, and found there was an exponential decrease in the minimum detectable effect with increasing number of sites. In combination, our findings suggest that assessing broad 123Biodivers Conserv (2015) 24:33-46 DOI 10.1007 diversity patterns in abundant and readily detectable organisms may be possible with relatively low survey effort per site. Our study demonstrates the utility of conducting pilot studies prior to designing large-scale studies on diversity distribution patterns.

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“…The maximum annual farm expansion of 50% should be interpreted as a policy that favors intensive and large-scale agriculture over small-scale diversified farms. Potential consequences such as farm amalgamation, intensification and scale enlargement have led to the reduction of diversity and hedgerows in for instance East Anglia (Stoate et al 2001(Stoate et al , 2009. With the likely forthcoming exit of the UK from the EU, the future of AES is now insecure (Grant 2016).…”

Section: Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural landscapes of the future: using agent-based modeling to discuss and develop the use and management of the cultural landscape of South West Devon

Tieskens¹,

Shaw

Haer³

et al. 2017

Landscape Ecol

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Context Hedgerows are typical landscape features of high environmental and cultural value that often have been sacrificed for agricultural intensification and scale enlargement. Objectives We studied the dynamics of hedgerow quality over time in a case study area renowned for its hedgerow landscapes: South West Devon (UK) answering the following research questions: (1) how does the imperative of scale enlargement affect hedgerow quality? and (2) to what extent can cultural landscape degradation be countered by targeted policies? Methods We applied an agent-based modeling approach, parameterized with a site specific survey, to explore and discuss outcomes of future landscape change with stakeholders and co-designed preferred scenarios of landscape change during a workshop. Results Outcomes suggested that in the case-study area, scale enlargement has a negative effect on hedgerow quality when agri-environment scheme subsidies (AES) are low. In contrast, if the level of AES enrollment is high, scale enlargement can have a positive effect on hedgerow quality, as large holders are more likely to enroll for AES. Stakeholders acknowledged the need for agricultural intensification, but at the same time valued biodiversity and environmental value of the landscape in South West Devon. Conclusion Current AES are able to retain a decent hedgerow quality. With lower AES, scale enlargement can have an invigorative effect on hedgerow quality as land managers of larger farms will be less likely to join AES As an addition to AES, harvesting wood fuel from coppiced hedgerows appears a promising way to incentivize rejuvenating hedgerow management without governmental subsidies.

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Ecological impacts of early 21st century agricultural change in Europe – A review

Cited by 1,088 publications

References 263 publications

Study of Autumn-Winter Weeds in Portugal and Its Ecological Preferences

Study of Autumn-Winter Weeds in Portugal and Its Ecological Preferences

Developing robust field survey protocols in landscape ecology: a case study on birds, plants and butterflies

Cultural landscapes of the future: using agent-based modeling to discuss and develop the use and management of the cultural landscape of South West Devon

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