Landscape perspectives on agricultural intensification and biodiversity - ecosystem service management

Abstract

Understanding the negative and positive effects of agricultural land use for theconservation of biodiversity, and its relation to ecosystem services, needs a landscapeperspective. Agriculture can contribute to the conservation of high-diversity systems,which may provide important ecosystem services such as pollination and biologicalcontrol via complementarity and sampling effects. Land-use management is oftenfocused on few species and local processes, but in dynamic, agricultural landscapes, onlya diversity of insurance species may guarantee resilience (the capacity to reorganize afterdisturbance). Interacting species experience their surrounding landscape at differentspatial scales, which influences trophic interactions. Structurally complex landscapesenhance local diversity in agroecosystems, which may compensate for local high-intensity management. Organisms with high-dispersal abilities appear to drive thesebiodiversity patterns and ecosystem services, because of their recolonization ability andlarger resources experienced. Agri-environment schemes (incentives for farmers tobenefit the environment) need to broaden their perspective and to take the differentresponses to schemes in simple (high impact) and complex (low impact) agriculturallandscapes into account. In simple landscapes, local allocation of habitat is moreimportant than in complex landscapes, which are in total at risk. However, littleknowledge of the relative importance of local and landscape management forbiodiversity and its relation to ecosystem services make reliable recommendationsdifficult.