Working landscapes need at least 20% native habitat

Biodiversity loss impacts top-down regulation of insect herbivores across ecosystem boundaries

Biodiversity loss, as driven by anthropogenic global change, imperils biosphere intactness and integrity. Ecosystem services such as top-down regulation (or biological control; BC) are susceptible to loss of extinction-prone taxa at upper trophic levels and secondary 'support' species e.g., herbivores. Here, drawing upon curated open-access interaction data, we structurally analyze trophic networks centered on the fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and assess their robustness to species loss. Tri-partite networks link 80 BC organisms (invertebrate or microbial), 512 lepidopteran hosts and 1194 plants (including 147 cultivated crops) in the Neotropics. These comprise threatened herbaceous or woody plants and conservation flagships such as saturniid moths. Treating all interaction partners functionally equivalent, random herbivore loss exerts a respective 26 % or 108 % higher impact on top-down regulation in crop and non-crop settings than that of BC organisms (at 50 % loss). Equally, random loss of BC organisms affects herbivore regulation to a greater extent (13.8 % at 50 % loss) than herbivore loss mediates their preservation (11.4 %). Yet, under moderate biodiversity loss, (non-pest) herbivores prove highly susceptible to loss of BC organisms. Our topological approach spotlights how agriculturally-subsidized BC agents benefit vegetation restoration, while non-pest herbivores uphold biological control in on- and off-farm settings alike. Our work underlines how the on-farm usage of endemic biological control organisms can advance conservation, restoration, and agricultural sustainability imperatives. We discuss how integrative approaches and close interdisciplinary cooperation can spawn desirable outcomes for science, policy and practice.

Mixing on- and off-field measures for biodiversity conservation

The continuing biodiversity losses through agricultural expansion and intensification are dramatic. We argue that a mix of on- and off-field measures is needed, overcoming the false dichotomy of the land sharing-sparing debate. Protected land is essential for global biodiversity, while spillover between farmed and natural land is key to reducing species extinctions. This is particularly effective in landscapes with small and diversified fields. Focusing only on protected land fails to conserve a wealth of species, which often provide major ecosystem services such as pest control, pollination, and cultural benefits. On-field measures must minimise yield losses to prevent increased demand for food imports from biodiversity-rich regions, requiring enforcement of high social-ecological land-use standards to ensure a good life for all.

Joint environmental and social benefits from diversified agriculture

Agricultural simplification continues to expand at the expense of more diverse forms of agriculture. This simplification, for example, in the form of intensively managed monocultures, poses a risk to keeping the world within safe and just Earth system boundaries. Here, we estimated how agricultural diversification simultaneously affects social and environmental outcomes. Drawing from 24 studies in 11 countries across 2655 farms, we show how five diversification strategies focusing on livestock, crops, soils, noncrop plantings, and water conservation benefit social (e.g., human well-being, yields, and food security) and environmental (e.g., biodiversity, ecosystem services, and reduced environmental externalities) outcomes. We found that applying multiple diversification strategies creates more positive outcomes than individual management strategies alone. To realize these benefits, well-designed policies are needed to incentivize the adoption of multiple diversification strategies in unison.

Biodiversity-production feedback effects lead to intensification traps in agricultural landscapes

Intensive agriculture with high reliance on pesticides and fertilizers constitutes a major strategy for 'feeding the world'. However, such conventional intensification is linked to diminishing returns and can result in 'intensification traps'-production declines triggered by the negative feedback of biodiversity loss at high input levels. Here we developed a novel framework that accounts for biodiversity feedback on crop yields to evaluate the risk and magnitude of intensification traps. Simulations grounded in systematic literature reviews showed that intensification traps emerge in most landscape types, but to a lesser extent in major cereal production systems. Furthermore, small reductions in maximal production (5-10%) could be frequently transmitted into substantial biodiversity gains, resulting in small-loss large-gain trade-offs prevailing across landscape types. However, sensitivity analyses revealed a strong context dependence of trap emergence, inducing substantial uncertainty in the identification of optimal management at the field scale. Hence, we recommend the development of case-specific safety margins for intensification preventing double losses in biodiversity and food security associated with intensification traps.

Temporal dynamics in the composition of bird communities along a gradient of farmland restoration

Revegetation plantings are a key activity in farmland restoration and are commonly assumed to support biotic communities that, with time, replicate those of reference habitats. Restoration outcomes, however, can be highly variable and difficult to predict; hence there is value in quantifying restoration success to improve future efforts. We test the expectation that, over time, revegetation will restore bird communities to match those in reference habitats; and assess whether specific planting attributes enhance restoration success. We surveyed birds in 255 sites in south-east Australia, arranged along a restoration gradient encompassing three habitat types: unrestored farmland (paddocks), revegetation plantings (comprising a chronosequence up to 52 years old) and reference habitats (remnant native vegetation). Surveys were undertaken in 2006/2007 and again in 2019, with data used to compare bird assemblages between habitat types. We also determined whether, in the intervening 12 years, bird communities in revegetation had shifted toward reference habitats on the restoration gradient. Our results showed that each habitat contained a unique bird community and that, over time, assemblages in revegetation diverged away from those in unrestored farmland and converged toward those in reference habitats. Two planting attributes influenced this transition: the bird assemblages of revegetation were more likely to have diverged away from those of unrestored farmland (with scattered mature trees) 12 years later if they were located in areas with more surrounding tree cover, and were mostly ungrazed by livestock (compared with grazed plantings). Our results highlight three key ways in which revegetation contributes to farmland restoration: (1) by supporting richer and more diverse bird assemblages than unrestored farmland, (2) by enhancing beta diversity in rural landscapes through the addition of a unique bird community, and (3) by shifting bird assemblages toward those found in reference habitats over time. However, revegetation plantings did not replicate reference habitats by ~40-50 years in our region, and complete convergence may take centuries. These findings have implications for environmental offset programs and mean that effective conservation in farmland environments depends on the retention and protection of natural and seminatural habitats as a parallel management strategy to complement restoration.

Reassessing science communication for effective farmland biodiversity conservation

Integrating biodiversity conservation into agriculture is a pressing challenge promoted by conservationists. Although biodiversity can also provide important benefits to farmers, the adoption of biodiversity-enhancing measures is lagging behind the scientific evidence. This may partially be related to the way scientists position themselves. If scientists do not convincingly communicate about the implications of their evidence, other interested stakeholders will drive the conversations. To increase societal impact, scientists must understand the complex communication environment and take an informed and strategic position. We describe the prevailing conservation and farming narratives, highlighting how the term 'biodiversity' can be used to start dialogues between parties with conflicting demands and exemplifying how scientists can build effective narratives.

Effects of arsenic and selenium pollution on wild bee communities in the agricultural landscapes

Wild bees play crucial roles in pollinating numerous crops and fruits worldwide. However, these essential insect pollinators are threatened with decline due to a variety of stressors. Among stressors, relatively little work has been done on metalloid pollution. Laboratory experiments have shown that arsenic (As) and selenium (Se) can negatively impact on bees, it is unknown if these effects translate in real-world environments. To address this knowledge gap, wild bee communities were sampled from 18 smallholder farmlands in Kaihua County in Quzhou, Southeast China and As and Se concentrations in three bee species were measured (Xylocopa tranquebarorum, Eucera floralia, and Apis cerana). Analyses revealed that the large carpenter bee, X. tranquebarorum, exhibited significantly lower As and Se concentrations than the other two wild bee species. No significant correlations were found between As and Se concentrations in all three wild bee species. Interestingly, the proportion of semi-natural habitat was found to be significantly related to reduced Se concentration in wild bee bodies, though no such effect was observed for As. As pollution negatively impacted bee diversity but not abundance, whereas Se significantly impacted neither bee diversity nor abundance. Furthermore, both As and Se pollution had no significant effect on the abundance of small-bodied wild bees. Given the essential role of wild bees for pollination services, monitoring of As and Se pollution in wild bee bodies and their food resources (pollen and nectar) is recommended across agricultural and other potentially impacted systems.

Agricultural expansion raises groundwater and increases flooding in the South American plains

Regional effects of farming on hydrology are associated mostly with irrigation. In this work, we show how rainfed agriculture can also leave large-scale imprints. The extent and speed of farming expansion across the South American plains over the past four decades provide an unprecedented case of the effects of rainfed farming on hydrology. Remote sensing analysis shows that as annual crops replaced native vegetation and pastures, floods gradually doubled their coverage, increasing their sensitivity to precipitation. Groundwater shifted from deep (12 to 6 meters) to shallow (4 to 0 meters) states, reducing drawdown levels. Field studies and simulations suggest that declining rooting depths and evapotranspiration in croplands are the causes of this hydrological transformation. These findings show the escalating flooding risks associated with rainfed agriculture expansion at subcontinental and decadal scales.

Optimizing low-cost sampling of pollinator insects in oilseed rape fields

Insects are key pollinators to ecosystem function, but much work remains to determine the most cost-effective, reliable scheme to monitor them. Pan traps (PT) and flight interception traps (FIT) are two of the most popular insect sampling methods used. However, their relative sampling performance and cost is poorly known for agroecosystems in China. We conducted a study across 18 oilseed rape fields in smallholder farmland in Zhejiang, China using these two traps. Our results showed that a single FIT had a greater sampling efficiency (more individuals and higher species richness) than a single PT, but controlling for cost, four PTs (the cost for four PTs is close to one FIT) showed a greater sampling efficiency than FITs. PTs collected more small-bodied individuals while FITs and PTs did not significantly differ in terms of monitoring pollinator insects with large body size. When exploring whether semi-natural habitat embedded in the agricultural landscape affected these results, results from both trap types shows that semi-natural habitat had a significant positive impact on wild pollinator diversity and rarefied species richness. Future studies that examine the effects of agricultural landscape on the wild pollinator community should combine PTs with netting or other active methods for long-term wild pollinator monitoring strategies.

Safeguarding pollinators requires specific habitat prescriptions and substantially more land area than suggested by current policy

Habitat loss and fragmentation are major drivers of global pollinator declines, yet even after recent unprecedented periods of anthropogenic land-use intensification the amount of habitat needed to support insect pollinators remains unknown. Here we use comprehensive pan trap bee survey datasets from Ontario, Canada, to determine which habitat types are needed and at what spatial scales to support wild bee communities. Safeguarding wild bee communities in a Canadian landscape requires 11.6-16.7% land-cover from a diverse range of habitats (~ 2.6-3.7 times current policy guidelines) to provide targeted habitat prescriptions for different functional guilds over a variety of spatial scales, irrespective of whether conservation aims are enhancing bee species richness or abundance. Sensitive and declining habitats, like tallgrass woodlands and wetlands, were important predictors of bee biodiversity. Conservation strategies that under-estimate the extent of habitat, spatial scale and specific habitat needs of functional guilds are unlikely to protect bee communities and the essential pollination services they provide to both crops and wild plants.

Defining features of diverse and productive agricultural systems: An archetype analysis of U.S. agricultural counties

Prior research suggests that greater spatial diversity in crops and land use is associated with higher crop yields and improved ecosystem function. However, what leads to the emergence of agricultural systems that meet both productivity and ecological health goals remains an open question. Understanding the factors that differentiate these places from other agricultural systems is key to understanding the mechanisms, pathways, consequences, and constraints to employing diversification as a tool for increasing agricultural sustainability. In this study, we employ archetype analysis to examine the factors uniquely associated with the conjoint existence of high crop diversity and high crop productivity. We identify five agricultural system classes that represent a range of diversity and productivity combinations using k-means cluster analysis then use random forests analysis to identify factors that strongly explain the differences between the classes—describing different agricultural production regimes. Our exploratory analysis of the difference in agricultural system factors across classes suggests (1) crop diversity and its preconditions are associated with the highest yields, (2) biophysical conditions bound diversity-productivity realities, (3) productivity comes at a petrochemical cost, and that (4) crop rotations are a key diversification strategy. Overall, our results suggest that despite clear biophysical constraints on transitions to high diversity—high productivity systems the role of actionable factors on crop production regimes is stronger, providing reason to be hopeful about transitions to agricultural production regimes fit for new climate realities.

Un-yielding: Evidence for the agriculture transformation we need

There has been a seismic shift in the center of gravity of scientific writing and thinking about agriculture over the past decades, from a prevailing focus on maximizing yields toward a goal of balancing trade-offs and ensuring the delivery of multiple ecosystem services. Maximizing crop yields often results in a system where most benefits accrue to very few (in the form of profits), alongside irreparable environmental harm to agricultural ecosystems, landscapes, and people. Here, we present evidence that an un-yielding, which we define as de-emphasizing the importance of yields alone, is necessary to achieve the goal of a more Food secure, Agrobiodiverse, Regenerative, Equitable and just (FARE) agriculture. Focusing on yields places the emphasis on one particular outcome of agriculture, which is only an intermediate means to the true endpoint of human well-being. Using yields as a placeholder for this outcome ignores the many other benefits of agriculture that people also care about, like health, livelihoods, and a sense of place. Shifting the emphasis to these multiple benefits rather than merely yields, and to their equitable delivery to all people, we find clear scientific evidence of win-wins for people and nature through four strategies that foster FARE agriculture: reduced disturbance, systems reintegration, diversity, and justice (in the form of securing rights to land and other resources). Through a broad review of the current state of agriculture, desired futures, and the possible pathways to reach them, we argue that while trade-offs between some ecosystem services in agriculture are unavoidable, the same need not be true of the end benefits we desire from them.

Spatial patterns of nutrients balance of major crops in Argentina

Argentina has a long tradition of agricultural systems that use few amounts of fertilizers. However, the crop nutrient balance remains unknown throughout the country. In this study, we estimated the nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and sulfur (S) balance at national and subnational scale of the six major grain crops: soybean, maize, wheat, sunflower, barley and sorghum. We found a negative spatio-temporal NPS balance with an annual average deficit of -22.4 kg ha^-1 year^-1 for N, -6.9 kg ha^-1 year^-1 for P and -2.1 kg ha^-1 year^-1 for S. Considering the whole agricultural area analyzed, the balance represented a mean annual negative net outflow of 612 thousand tons (kT) of N, 166 kT of P and 58 kT of S. The nutrient balance was not homogeneous across the country, with significant differences among the three major productive regions: i) the Pampean nucleus region (-32.2, -8.5, -2.92 kg ha^-1 year^-1, for N, P and S respectively) ii) the non-nucleus Pampean region (-14.3, -3.7, -2.03 kg ha^-1 year^-1 for N, P and S respectively), and iii) extra-Pampean region (-22.4, -6.3, -2.13 kg ha^-1 year^-1 for N, P and S respectively). Remarkably, despite having the highest N and P application rate, the Pampean nucleus region has the largest deficit of the analyzed nutrients. Soybean was the main driver of the nutrient mining in the country, accounting for 62 % of the NPS deficits at national scale (-418 kT N year^-1, -120 kT P year^-1 and -35 kT S year^-1). Our findings suggest that the current fertilization practices applied to the major extensive crops in Argentina are far from being sufficient to supply the nutrients they demand, even cultivating soybean that is a N-fixing crop. These results highlight that Argentine main crops' high productivity is reached at the expense of soil nutrient depletion.

Overcoming global inequality is critical for land-based mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement

Transformation pathways for the land sector in line with the Paris Agreement depend on the assumption of globally implemented greenhouse gas (GHG) emission pricing, and in some cases also on inclusive socio-economic development and sustainable land-use practices. In such pathways, the majority of GHG emission reductions in the land system is expected to come from low- and middle-income countries, which currently account for a large share of emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU). However, in low- and middle-income countries the economic, financial and institutional barriers for such transformative changes are high. Here, we show that if sustainable development in the land sector remained highly unequal and limited to high-income countries only, global AFOLU emissions would remain substantial throughout the 21st century. Our model-based projections highlight that overcoming global inequality is critical for land-based mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement. While also a scenario purely based on either global GHG emission pricing or on inclusive socio-economic development would achieve the stringent emissions reductions required, only the latter ensures major co-benefits for other Sustainable Development Goals, especially in low- and middle-income regions.

Demystifying ecological connectivity for actionable spatial conservation planning

Connectivity underpins the persistence of life; it needs to inform biodiversity conservation decisions. Yet, when prioritising conservation areas and developing actions, connectivity is not being operationalised in spatial planning. The challenge is the translation of flows associated with connectivity into conservation objectives that lead to actions. Connectivity is nebulous, it can be abstract and mean different things to different people, making it difficult to include in conservation problems. Here, we show how connectivity can be included in mathematically defining conservation planning objectives. We provide a path forward for linking connectivity to high-level conservation goals, such as increasing species' persistence. We propose ways to design spatial management areas that gain biodiversity benefit from connectivity.

Tree diversity in a tropical agricultural-forest mosaic landscape in Honduras

Biodiversity decline in the tropics requires the implementation of comprehensive landscape management where agricultural systems are necessarily an integral element of biodiversity conservation. This study evaluates the potential for taxonomic biodiversity conservation within an intensive livestock-agricultural-forest mosaic landscape in Catacamas, Honduras. Tree sampling was performed in 448 plots set up within different forest and agricultural land uses: secondary forests, agroforestry coffee plantations, agriculture, pastures, live fences and riparian forest. All trees with a minimum diameter at breast height of 10 cm were identified and measured. We characterized their tree structure and diversity, and compared tree diversity between the different uses. The results indicate a high degree of tree species diversity: 375 species identified, belonging to 74 families among the 15,096 trees inventoried across 84.2 hectares, including many rare species (40% of the species registered three individuals or fewer). Biodiversity indices for agroforestry coffee were found equivalent to those for natural secondary forests in the Catacamas landscape. Combining biodiversity conservation and agricultural production is possible in human-pressured tropical landscapes through tree cover maintenance. Enrichment practices combining local producers and technical knowledge may improve tree diversity in agricultural landscapes by prioritizing a mix of forest and introduced tree species (rare and with multiple uses).

Toward evidence-based decision support systems to optimize pollination and yields in highbush blueberry

Highbush blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) is a globally important fruit crop that depends on insect-mediated pollination to produce quality fruit and commercially viable yields. Pollination success in blueberry is complex and impacted by multiple interacting factors including flower density, bee diversity and abundance, and weather conditions. Other factors, including floral traits, bee traits, and economics also contribute to pollination success at the farm level but are less well understood. As blueberry production continues to expand globally, decision-aid technologies are needed to optimize and enhance the sustainability of pollination strategies. The objective of this review is to highlight our current knowledge about blueberry pollination, where current research efforts are focused, and where future research should be directed to successfully implement a comprehensive blueberry pollination decision-making framework for modern production systems. Important knowledge gaps remain, including how to integrate wild and managed pollinators to optimize pollination, and how to provide predictable and stable crop pollination across variable environmental conditions. In addition, continued advances in pesticide stewardship are required to optimize pollinator health and crop outcomes. Integration of on- and off-farm data, statistical models, and software tools could distill complex scientific information into decision-aid systems that support sustainable, evidence-based pollination decisions at the farm level. Utility of these tools will require multi-disciplinary research and strategic deployment through effective extension and information-sharing networks of growers, beekeepers, and extension/crop advisors.

Complex agricultural landscapes host more biodiversity than simple ones: A global meta-analysis

Agricultural land, the world’s largest human-managed ecosystem, forms the matrix that connects remnant and fragmented patches of natural vegetation where nondomesticated biodiversity struggles to survive. Increasing the resources that this matrix can offer to biodiversity is critical to halting biodiversity loss. Our comprehensive meta-analysis demonstrates the positive and significant effect on biodiversity of increasing landscape complexity in agricultural lands. We found more biodiversity in complex landscapes, potentially contributing to agriculture production, ecosystem resilience, and human well-being. Current biodiversity conservation strategies tend to focus on natural ecosystems, often ignoring opportunities to boost biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Our findings provide a strong scientific evidence base for synergistically managing agriculture at the landscape level for biodiversity conservation and sustainable production.

Managing agricultural landscapes to support biodiversity conservation requires profound structural changes worldwide. Often, discussions are centered on management at the field level. However, a wide and growing body of evidence calls for zooming out and targeting agricultural policies, research, and interventions at the landscape level to halt and reverse the decline in biodiversity, increase biodiversity-mediated ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes, and improve the resilience and adaptability of these ecosystems. We conducted the most comprehensive assessment to date on landscape complexity effects on nondomesticated terrestrial biodiversity through a meta-analysis of 1,134 effect sizes from 157 peer-reviewed articles. Increasing landscape complexity through changes in composition, configuration, or heterogeneity significatively and positively affects biodiversity. More complex landscapes host more biodiversity (richness, abundance, and evenness) with potential benefits to sustainable agricultural production and conservation, and effects are likely underestimated. The few articles that assessed the combined contribution of linear (e.g., hedgerows) and areal (e.g., woodlots) elements resulted in a near-doubling of the effect sizes (i.e., biodiversity level) compared to the dominant number of studies measuring these elements separately. Similarly, positive effects on biodiversity are stronger in articles monitoring biodiversity for at least 2 y compared to the dominant 1-y monitoring efforts. Besides, positive and stronger effects exist when monitoring occurs in nonoverlapping landscapes, highlighting the need for long-term and robustly designed monitoring efforts. Living in harmony with nature will require shifting paradigms toward valuing and promoting multifunctional agriculture at the farm and landscape levels with a research agenda that untangles complex agricultural landscapes’ contributions to people and nature under current and future conditions.

The potential consequences of 'bee washing' on wild bee health and conservation

Concern around declining bee populations globally has become an environmental issue of mainstream importance. Policymakers, scientists, environmental non-government organizations, media outlets and the public have displayed great interest in conservation actions to support pollinators. As with many environmental causes, green washing, or in this case ‘bee washing’, has become rampant. Bee washing can lead to multiple negative consequences, including misinformation, misallocation of resources, increasing threats and steering public understanding and environmental policy away from evidence-based decision-making. Here I will discuss the multiple potential consequences of bee washing on efforts to conserve declining wild bees and promote wild bee health.

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Concern around declining bee populations globally has become an environmental issue of mainstream importance.

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Policymakers, scientists, environmental non-government organizations, media outlets and the public have displayed interest in conservation action to support pollinators.

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‘Bee washing’, has become rampant.

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Narratives and actions tend to focus on low-hanging fruit, actions which are easy to address and/or the selling of commercial items where industry benefits but the species of concern do not.

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Negative consequences include misinformation, misallocation of resources, increasing threats and steering environmental policy away from evidence-based decision-making.

Functional connectivity of the world's protected areas

Global policies call for connecting protected areas (PAs) to conserve the flow of animals and genes across changing landscapes, yet whether global PA networks currently support animal movement-and where connectivity conservation is most critical-remain largely unknown. In this study, we map the functional connectivity of the world's terrestrial PAs and quantify national PA connectivity through the lens of moving mammals. We find that mitigating the human footprint may improve connectivity more than adding new PAs, although both strategies together maximize benefits. The most globally important areas of concentrated mammal movement remain unprotected, with 71% of these overlapping with global biodiversity priority areas and 6% occurring on land with moderate to high human modification. Conservation and restoration of critical connectivity areas could safeguard PA connectivity while supporting other global conservation priorities.

Using crop diversity to lower pesticide use: Socio-ecological approaches

The farming practices adopted since the end of the Second World War, based on large areas of monocultures and chemical use, have adversely affected the health of farmers and consumers and dramatically reduced farmland biodiversity. As a consequence, many studies over more than twenty years have stated that agriculture is facing three main challenges: (1) feeding the growing world population (2) with more environmentally friendly products (3) at a reasonable return for the producer. Increasing the efficacy of biocontrol could be one lever for agriculture to meet these expectations. In this study we propose implementation of a relatively under-researched system based on the management of landscape level crop diversity that would reduce demand for pesticide use and increase conservation biocontrol. The principle of manipulating crop diversity over space and time at a landscape scale is to optimize resource continuity, such as food and shelter for natural enemies to increase biocontrol services, reduce pest outbreaks and crop losses. The feasibility of such management options is discussed in relation to environmental, social and economic aspects. The operational and institutional inputs and conditions needed to make the system work are explored, as well as the potential added values of such a system for different stakeholders.

Habitat selection by a predator of rodent pests is resilient to wildfire in a vineyard agroecosystem

Conservation of uncultivated habitats can increase the potential for ecosystem services in agroecosystems, but these lands are also susceptible to wildfires in the arid western United States. In Napa Valley, California, abundant rodent pests and an interest in integrated pest management have led wine producers to use nest boxes to attract Barn Owls (Tyto furcata) to winegrape vineyards. The viability of this practice as a method to control rodent pests depends heavily on the amount of hunting effort that Barn Owls expend in vineyards, which is known to be influenced by the amount of uncultivated land cover types surrounding the nest box. Wildfires burned nearly 60,000 ha of mainly urban and uncultivated lands surrounding Napa Valley in 2017, altering Barn Owl habitats. We compared GPS tracking data from 32 Barn Owls nesting in 24 individual nest boxes before and after the fires to analyze their hunting habitat selection. Owls with burned areas available to them after the fires had home ranges that shifted toward the fires, but selection was not strongly associated with burned areas. Though there was some spatial use of burned areas, selection of land cover types was similar for birds before and after the fires and in burned and unburned areas. The strongest selection was for areas closest to the nest box, and most recorded locations were in grassland, though selection indicated that owls used land cover types in proportion to their availability. Overall, habitat selection was resilient to changes caused by wildfires. These results are important for farmers who use nest boxes as a means of rodent control, which may be affected after dramatic disturbance events, especially as wildfires increase in the western United States.

Prairie and tree planting tool-PT2 (1.0): a conservation decision support tool for Iowa, USA

This article overviews the prairie and tree planting tool or PT2 (1.0), an online GIS-based decision support tool for landowners interested in exploring opportunities to plant prairie or trees in and around their farm fields for conservation or production purposes. PT2 1.0 can be found online at: https://pt2.nrem.iastate.edu/. With the PT2 (1.0) users locate farm fields of interest in an online aerial photograph and mapping geographic information system (GIS). Users explore areas they are considering for prairie or tree cover by examining different data layers: soil maps, 2-foot contour topography maps, LiDAR hillshade maps, and a map of current land values based on estimated land rent. Users then utilize scaled dimensional drawing tools to measure and delineate areas of interest for planting trees and or prairie. Once an area is delineated, users select from drop-down menus prairie seed mixes or woody species that are suitable for the soils present, and users can select basic long-term management options. PT2 (1.0) estimates total annualized costs for tree or prairie establishment, long-term management, and opportunity costs (based on area weighted expected soil rent), and factors in the potential benefit of utilizing government cost-share programming, e.g., Environmental Quality Incentive Program or the Conservation Reserve Program. Key data layers are currently functional in Iowa, likewise the financial data underlying the cost analysis are specific to Iowa. PT2 (1.0) is, however, open source and open code and guidance is provided regarding how to access and adapt the data for use in other states.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10457-021-00686-8.

Plant-pollinator conservation from the perspective of systems-ecology

Ecosystems are interconnected and complex, but conservation has often focused on rehabilitating individual species. A systems-ecology approach aims to support overall structure and maintain functions of the whole ecosystem, and may be especially pertinent for mutualistic plant-pollinator communities. This approach focuses on species interactions as the units to be conserved within the larger ecosystem. Analyzing species interactions is a more holistic approach because it incorporates a broader web of organisms, and considers the plethora of potential indirect influences from interacting partners. In this article, we suggest pollinator researchers focus on plant-pollinator networks to inform conservation programs and best support the coexistence of pollinators and plants within natural and agricultural systems. We propose that a system-ecology perspective is the most promising way to simultaneously improve pollinator conservation, agricultural sustainability, and human well-being.

Areas Requiring Restoration Efforts are a Complementary Opportunity to Support the Demand for Pollination Services in Brazil

Crop pollination is one of Nature's Contributions to People (NCP) that reconciles biodiversity conservation and agricultural production. NCP benefits vary across space, including among distinct political-administrative levels within nations. Moreover, initiatives to restore ecosystems may enhance NCP provision, such as crop pollination delivered by native pollinators. We mapped crop pollination demand (PD), diversity of pollinator-dependent crops, and vegetation deficit (VD) (vis-a-vis Brazilian legal requirements) across all 5570 municipalities in Brazil. Pollinator-dependent crops represented ∼55% of the annual monetary value of agricultural production and ∼15% of the annual crop production. Municipalities with greater crop PD (i.e., higher degree of pollinator dependence of crop production) also had greater VD, associated with large properties and monocultures. In contrast, municipalities with a greater diversity of pollinator-dependent crops and predominantly small properties presented a smaller VD. Our results support that ecological restoration prompted by legal requirements offers great potential to promote crop productivity in larger properties. Moreover, conservation of vegetation remnants could support food security in small properties. We provided the first steps to identify spatial patterns linking biodiversity conservation and pollination service. Using Brazilian legal requirements as an example, we show that land-use management policies may be successfully used to ensure agricultural sustainability and crop production.

Beyond organic farming - harnessing biodiversity-friendly landscapes

We challenge the widespread appraisal that organic farming is the fundamental alternative to conventional farming for harnessing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Certification of organic production is largely restricted to banning synthetic agrochemicals, resulting in limited benefits for biodiversity but high yield losses despite ongoing intensification and specialisation. In contrast, successful agricultural measures to enhance biodiversity include diversifying cropland and reducing field size, which can multiply biodiversity while sustaining high yields in both conventional and organic systems. Achieving a landscape-level mosaic of natural habitat patches and fine-grained cropland diversification in both conventional and organic agriculture is key for promoting large-scale biodiversity. This needs to be urgently acknowledged by policy makers for an agricultural paradigm shift.

Time to Integrate Pollinator Science into Soybean Production

Soybeans cover 129 million hectares globally. Soybean productivity can increase with pollinator management, but soybean cultivation practices commonly ignore biotic pollination. If pollinator habitats are created within soybean landscapes and policies to limit agricultural expansion are implemented, millions of hectares could be restored for biodiversity without loss of soybean production.

Restoration and Conservation of Priority Areas of Caatinga’s Semi-Arid Forest Remnants Can Support Connectivity within an Agricultural Landscape

Land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes are major drivers of biodiversity loss in semi-arid regions, such as the Caatinga biome located in the Northeast of Brazil. We investigated landscape dynamics and fragmentation in an area of the São Francisco Valley in the Brazilian Caatinga biome and measured the effect of these dynamics on ecological, functional and structural connectivity over a 33-year period (1985–2018). We calculated landscape connectivity indices based on graph theory to quantify the effect of further agricultural expansion on ecological connectivity at the landscape scale. We used a multicriteria decision analysis that integrates graph-based connectivity indices at the habitat patch scale, combined with an index of human disturbance to identify patches that, if conserved and restored, preserve the connectivity of the landscape most effectively. In the period studied, agriculture increased at a rate of 2104 ha/year, while native Caatinga vegetation decreased at a rate of 5203 ha/year. Both dense and open Caatinga became more fragmented, with the number of fragments increasing by 85.2% and 28.6%, respectively, whilst the average fragment size decreased by 84.8% and 6.1% for dense and open Caatinga, respectively. If agriculture patches were to expand by a 300 m buffer around each patch, the overall ecological connectivity could be reduced by 6–15%, depending on the species’ (small- to mid-size terrestrial vertebrates) mobility characteristics for which the connectivity indices were calculated. We provided explicit spatial connectivity and fragmentation information for the conservation and restoration of the Caatinga vegetation in the studied area. This information helps with conservation planning in this rapidly changing ecosystem.

Effects of both climate change and human water demand on a highly threatened damselfly

While climate change severely affects some aquatic ecosystems, it may also interact with anthropogenic factors and exacerbate their impact. In dry climates, dams can cause hydrological drought during dry periods following a great reduction in dam water discharge. However, impact of these severe hydrological droughts on lotic fauna is poorly documented, despite climate change expected to increase drought duration and intensity. We document here how dam water discharge was affected by climate variability during 2011-2018 in a highly modified watershed in northeastern Algeria, and how an endemic endangered lotic damselfly, Calopteryx exul Selys, 1853 (Odonata: Calopterygidae), responded to hydrological drought episodes. Analysis was based on a compilation of data on climate (temperature, precipitation, and drought index), water dam management (water depth and discharge volume and frequency), survey data on C. exul occurrence, and capture-mark-recapture (CMR) of adults. The study period was characterized by a severe drought between 2014 and 2017, which led to a lowering of dam water depth and reduction of discharge into the river, with associated changes in water chemistry, particularly during 2017 and 2018. These events could have led to the extirpation of several populations of C. exul in the Seybouse River (Algeria). CMR surveys showed that the species was sensitive to water depth fluctuations, avoiding low and high water levels (drought and flooding). The study shows that climate change interacts with human water requirements and affects river flow regimes, water chemistry and aquatic fauna. As drought events are likely to increase in the future, the current study highlights the need for urgent new management plans for lotic habitats to maintain this species and possible others.