Complex agricultural landscapes host more biodiversity than simple ones: A global meta-analysis. 2022

Natalia Estrada-Carmona, and Andrea C Sánchez, and Roseline Remans, and Sarah K Jones
Bioversity International, Parc Scientifique d' Agropolis II, 34397 Montpellier, France.

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.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D003247 Conservation of Natural Resources The protection, preservation, restoration, and rational use of all resources in the total environment. Carrying Capacity,Deforestation,Desertification,Environmental Protection,Natural Resources Conservation,Protection, Environmental,Capacities, Carrying,Capacity, Carrying,Carrying Capacities,Conservation, Natural Resources
D000072480 Farms Areas of land set aside to grow crops or raise LIVESTOCK. Farmland,Vineyards,Farm,Farmlands,Vineyard
D044822 Biodiversity The variety of all native living organisms and their various forms and interrelationships. Biological Diversity,Diversity, Biological

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