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Research article2011Peer reviewedOpen access

Mixed effects of organic farming and landscape complexity on farmland biodiversity and biological control potential across Europe

Winqvist, Camilla; Bengtsson, Jan; Aavik, Tsipe; Berendse, Frank; Clement, Lars W.; Eggers, Sönke; Fischer, Christina; Flohre, Andreas; Geiger, Flavia; Liira, Jaan; Pärt, Tomas; Thies, Carsten; Tscharntke, Teja; Weisser, Wolfgang W.; Bommarco, Riccardo

Abstract

5. Synthesis and applications. This Europe-wide study shows that organic farming enhanced the biodiversity of plants and birds in all landscapes, but only improved the potential for biological control in heterogeneous landscapes. These mixed results stress the importance of taking both local management and regional landscape complexity into consideration when developing future agri-environment schemes, and suggest that local-regional interactions may affect other ecosystem services and functions. This study also shows that it is not enough to design and monitor agri-environment schemes on the basis of biodiversity, but that ecosystem services should be considered too.

Keywords

agricultural intensification; agri-environment schemes; biological control; ecosystem services; landscape homogenization; species richness

Published in

Journal of Applied Ecology
2011, Volume: 48, number: 3, pages: 570-579
Publisher: WILEY-BLACKWELL