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Juliana Dänhardt. Photo.

Juliana Dänhardt

Research coordinator

Juliana Dänhardt. Photo.

Relationships between multiple biodiversity components and ecosystem services along a landscape complexity gradient

Author

  • Klaus Birkhofer
  • Georg K.S. Andersson
  • Janne Bengtsson
  • Riccardo Bommarco
  • Juliana Dänhardt
  • Barbara Ekbom
  • Johan Ekroos
  • Thomas Hahn
  • Katarina Hedlund
  • Annelie M. Jönsson
  • Regina Lindborg
  • Ola Olsson
  • Romina Rader
  • Adrien Rusch
  • Martin Stjernman
  • Alwyn Williams
  • Henrik G. Smith
Show all

Summary, in English

The assessment of effects of anthropogenic disturbance on biodiversity (BD) and ecosystem services (ES) and their relationships are key priorities of the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Agricultural landscapes and their associated BD provide multiple ES and it is crucial to understand how relationships between ES and BD components change along gradients of landscape complexity. In this study, we related eight ES potentials to the species richness of five invertebrate, vertebrate and plant taxonomic groups in cereal farming systems. The landscape complexity gradient ranged from areas dominated by annually tilled arable land to areas with high proportions of unfertilized, non-rotational pastures and uncultivated field borders. We show that after accounting for landscape complexity relationships between yield and bird richness or biological control became more positive, but relationships between bird richness and biological control became less positive. The relationship between bird and plant richness turned from positive to negative. Multidiversity (overall biodiversity), was positively related to landscape complexity, whereas multifunctionality (overall ES provision), was not significantly related to either one of these. Our results suggest that multidiversity can be promoted by increasing landscape complexity; however; we found no support for a simultaneous increase of several individual ES, BD components or multifunctionality. These results challenge the assumption that biodiversity-friendly landscape management will always simultaneously promote multiple ES in agricultural landscapes. Future studies need to verify this pattern by using multi-year data, larger sets of ES and BD components and a study design that is appropriate to address larger spatial scales and relationships in several regions.

Department/s

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

Publishing year

2018-02-01

Language

English

Pages

247-253

Publication/Series

Biological Conservation

Volume

218

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Ecology

Keywords

  • Biodiversity loss
  • Landscape complexity
  • Multidiversity
  • Multifunctionality
  • Synergies
  • Trade-offs

Status

Published

Project

  • LInking farmland Biodiversity to Ecosystem seRvices for effective
  • Multifunctional agriculture: Harnessing biodiversity for sustaining agricultural production and ecosystem services
  • Rural development through governance of multifunctional agricultural land-use

Research group

  • Soil Ecology
  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0006-3207