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Yann Clough. Photo.

Yann Clough

Professor

Yann Clough. Photo.

A global synthesis of the effects of diversified farming systems on arthropod diversity within fields and across agricultural landscapes

Author

  • Elinor M. Lichtenberg
  • Christina M. Kennedy
  • Claire Kremen
  • Péter Batáry
  • Frank Berendse
  • Riccardo Bommarco
  • Nilsa A. Bosque-Pérez
  • Luísa G Carvalheiro
  • William E. Snyder
  • Neal M. Williams
  • Rachael Winfree
  • Björn K. Klatt
  • Sandra Åström
  • Faye Benjamin
  • Claire Brittain
  • Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer
  • Yann Clough
  • Bryan N. Danforth
  • Tim Diekötter
  • Sanford D. Eigenbrode
  • Johan Ekroos
  • Elizabeth Elle
  • Breno M. Freitas
  • Yuki Fukuda
  • Hannah R. Gaines-Day
  • Heather Grab
  • Claudio Gratton
  • Andrea Holzschuh
  • Rufus Isaacs
  • Marco Isaia
  • Shalene Jha
  • Dennis Jonason
  • Vincent P. Jones
  • Alexandra-Maria Klein
  • Jochen Krauss
  • Deborah K. Letourneau
  • Sarina Macfadyen
  • Rachel E. Mallinger
  • Emily A. Martin
  • Eliana Martinez
  • Jane Memmott
  • Lora Morandin
  • Lisa A. Neame
  • Mark Otieno
  • Mia G Park
  • Lukas Pfiffner
  • Michael J.O. Pocock
  • Carlos Ponce
  • Simon G. Potts
  • Katja Poveda
  • Mariangie Ramos
  • Jay A. Rosenheim
  • Maj Rundlöf
  • Hillary S Sardiñas
  • Manu E. Saunders
  • Nicole L. Schon
  • Amber R Sciligo
  • C. Sheena Sidhu
  • Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter
  • Teja Tscharntke
  • Milan Veselý
  • Wolfgang W Weisser
  • Julianna K. Wilson
  • David W. Crowder

Summary, in English

Agricultural intensification is a leading cause of global biodiversity loss, which can reduce the provisioning of ecosystem services in managed ecosystems. Organic farming and plant diversification are farm management schemes that may mitigate potential ecological harm by increasing species richness and boosting related ecosystem services to agroecosystems. What remains unclear is the extent to which farm management schemes affect biodiversity components other than species richness, and whether impacts differ across spatial scales and landscape contexts. Using a global metadataset, we quantified the effects of organic farming and plant diversification on abundance, local diversity (communities within fields), and regional diversity (communities across fields) of arthropod pollinators, predators, herbivores, and detritivores. Both organic farming and higher in-field plant diversity enhanced arthropod abundance, particularly for rare taxa. This resulted in increased richness but decreased evenness. While these responses were stronger at local relative to regional scales, richness and abundance increased at both scales, and richness on farms embedded in complex relative to simple landscapes. Overall, both organic farming and in-field plant diversification exerted the strongest effects on pollinators and predators, suggesting these management schemes can facilitate ecosystem service providers without augmenting herbivore (pest) populations. Our results suggest that organic farming and plant diversification promote diverse arthropod metacommunities that may provide temporal and spatial stability of ecosystem service provisioning. Conserving diverse plant and arthropod communities in farming systems therefore requires sustainable practices that operate both within fields and across landscapes.

Department/s

  • Biodiversity
  • Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC)
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science

Publishing year

2017-11

Language

English

Pages

4946-4957

Publication/Series

Global Change Biology

Volume

23

Issue

11

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
  • Ecology

Keywords

  • Agricultural management schemes
  • Arthropod diversity
  • Biodiversity
  • Evenness
  • Functional groups
  • Landscape complexity
  • Meta-analysis
  • Organic farming
  • Plant diversity

Status

Published

Research group

  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1354-1013