| 1. |
- Batáry, Péter, et al.
(författare)
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Biologia Futura : landscape perspectives on farmland biodiversity conservation
- 2020
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Ingår i: Biologia Futura. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2676-8615 .- 2676-8607. ; 71:1-2, s. 9-18
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- European nature conservation has a strong focus on farmland harbouring threatened species that mainly co-occur with traditional agriculture shaped way before the green revolution. Increased land-use intensity in agriculture has caused an alarming decline in farmland biodiversity during the last century. How can a landscape perspective contribute to fostering our understanding on causes and consequences of farmland biodiversity decline and improving the effectiveness of conservation measures? To answer these questions, we discuss the importance of landscape compositional and configurational heterogeneity, understanding ecological mechanisms determining how landscape structure affects farmland biodiversity and considering the interplay of farmland biodiversity and ecosystem service conservation.
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| 2. |
- Daum, Thomas, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Addressing agricultural labour issues is key to biodiversity-smart farming
- 2023
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Ingår i: Biological Conservation. - 0006-3207. ; 284
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is an urgent need for agricultural development strategies that reconcile agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. This is especially true in the Global South where population growth is rapid and much of the world's remaining biodiversity is located. Combining conceptual thoughts with empirical insights from case studies in Indonesia and Ethiopia, we argue that such strategies will have to pay more attention to agricultural labour dynamics. Farmers have a strong motivation to reduce the heavy toil associated with farming by adopting technologies that save labour but can negatively affect biodiversity. Labour constraints can also prevent farmers from adopting technologies that improve biodiversity but increase labour intensity. Without explicitly accounting for labour issues, conservation efforts can hardly be successful. We hence highlight the need for biodiversity-smart agriculture, that is farming practices or systems that reconcile biodiversity with land and labour productivity. Our empirical insights suggest that technological and institutional options to reconcile farmers' socio-economic goals and biodiversity conservation exist but that more needs to be done to implement such options at scale.
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| 3. |
- De Palma, Adriana, et al.
(författare)
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Predicting bee community responses to land-use changes : effects of geographic and taxonomic biases
- 2016
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2045-2322. ; 6, s. 1-14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Land-use change and intensification threaten bee populations worldwide, imperilling pollination services. Global models are needed to better characterise, project, and mitigate bees' responses to these human impacts. The available data are, however, geographically and taxonomically unrepresentative; most data are from North America and Western Europe, overrepresenting bumblebees and raising concerns that model results may not be generalizable to other regions and taxa. To assess whether the geographic and taxonomic biases of data could undermine effectiveness of models for conservation policy, we have collated from the published literature a global dataset of bee diversity at sites facing land-use change and intensification, and assess whether bee responses to these pressures vary across 11 regions (Western, Northern, Eastern and Southern Europe; North, Central and South America; Australia and New Zealand; South East Asia; Middle and Southern Africa) and between bumblebees and other bees. Our analyses highlight strong regionally-based responses of total abundance, species richness and Simpson's diversity to land use, caused by variation in the sensitivity of species and potentially in the nature of threats. These results suggest that global extrapolation of models based on geographically and taxonomically restricted data may underestimate the true uncertainty, increasing the risk of ecological surprises.
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| 4. |
- Denmead, Lisa H., et al.
(författare)
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The role of ants, birds and bats for ecosystem functions and yield in oil palm plantations
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 98:7, s. 1945-1956
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- One of the world's most important and rapidly expanding crops, oil palm, is associated with low levels of biodiversity. Changes in predator communities might alter ecosystem services and subsequently sustainable management but these links have received little attention to date. Here, for the first time, we manipulated ant and flying vertebrate (birds and bats) access to oil palms in six smallholder plantations in Sumatra (Indonesia) and measured effects on arthropod communities, related ecosystem functions (herbivory, predation, decomposition and pollination) and crop yield. Arthropod predators increased in response to reductions in ant and bird access, but the overall effect of experimental manipulations on ecosystem functions was minimal. Similarly, effects on yield were not significant. We conclude that ecosystem functions and productivity in oil palm are, under current levels of low pest pressure and large pollinator populations, robust to large reductions of major predators.
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| 5. |
- Hudson, Lawrence N, et al.
(författare)
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The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2045-7758. ; 7:1, s. 145-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The PREDICTS project-Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)-has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.
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| 6. |
- Kehoe, Laura, et al.
(författare)
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Make EU trade with Brazil sustainable
- 2019
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Ingår i: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 364:6438, s. 341-
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 7. |
- Manning, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Transferring biodiversity-ecosystem function research to the management of 'real-world' ecosystems
- 2019
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Ingår i: Mechanisms underlying the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function. - London : Elsevier. - 9780081029121 - 9780081029138 ; , s. 323-356
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research grew rapidly following concerns that biodiversity loss would negatively affect ecosystem functions and the ecosystem services they underpin. However, despite evidence that biodiversity strongly affects ecosystem functioning, the influence of BEF research upon policy and the management of 'real-world' ecosystems, i.e., semi-natural habitats and agroecosystems, has been limited. Here, we address this issue by classifying BEF research into three clusters based on the degree of human control over species composition and the spatial scale, in terms of grain, of the study, and discussing how the research of each cluster is best suited to inform particular fields of ecosystem management. Research in the first cluster, small-grain highly controlled studies, is best able to provide general insights into mechanisms and to inform the management of species-poor and highly managed systems such as croplands, plantations, and the restoration of heavily degraded ecosystems. Research from the second cluster, small-grain observational studies, and species removal and addition studies, may allow for direct predictions of the impacts of species loss in specific semi-natural ecosystems. Research in the third cluster, large-grain uncontrolled studies, may best inform landscape-scale management and national-scale policy. We discuss barriers to transfer within each cluster and suggest how new research and knowledge exchange mechanisms may overcome these challenges. To meet the potential for BEF research to address global challenges, we recommend transdisciplinary research that goes beyond these current clusters and considers the social-ecological context of the ecosystems in which BEF knowledge is generated. This requires recognizing the social and economic value of biodiversity for ecosystem services at scales, and in units, that matter to land managers and policy makers.
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| 8. |
- Schlinkert, Hella, et al.
(författare)
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Plant size affects mutualistic and antagonistic interactions and reproductive success across 21 Brassicaceae species
- 2016
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Ingår i: Ecosphere. - : Wiley. - 2150-8925. ; 7:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plant size has been hypothesized to be a major driver of biotic interactions. However, it is little understood how plant size affects plant mutualists vs. antagonists and the plant's resulting reproductive success. We established a common garden experiment covering an interspecific plant size gradient (from 10 to 130 cm height) across 21 annual Brassicaceae species, thereby standardizing features of habitat and surrounding landscape. We assessed flower-visiting pollinators and florivores (pollen beetle adults and larvae) and the resulting effects of all these flower-visiting insects on plant reproductive success. Besides flower characteristics (size, abundance, color), plant size had a generally positive effect on abundance and species richness of pollinators as well as on abundance of pollen beetle adults and larvae. Pollen beetles reduced seed number as well as thousand-seed weight, whereas pollinators increased seed number only. Overall, increasing plant size led to less thousand-seed weight but had no effect on seed number, indicating counterbalancing effects of herbivory and pollination. In conclusion, seed number of large plant species should benefit from locations with many pollinators and few herbivores and small plant species' seed number from locations with few pollinators and many herbivores.
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