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The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been broadened over recent decades in response to evolving challenges faced by the EU and its farmers. It now claims to support not only food security and farmers’ incomes, but also transitioning to a green economy, conservation of biodiversity and climate action. We have evaluated to what extent four main types of CAP payment instruments form a cohesi
Pollinators have been negatively impacted by agricultural intensification, loss of natural habitats and habitat fragmentation. This has raised concern about the persistence of plant species dependent on insect pollination in semi-natural grasslands where these are remnants of larger grazed areas, now surrounded by intensive agriculture and forests. To better understand landscape composition effect
Nowadays organisms encounter not only natural challenges from predators but also significant anthropogenic stressors, such as insecticides, which can profoundly disrupt their normal growth and behavior. However, the knowledge on their potential interactions remains largely unknown, particularly regarding how insecticides may affect predator-prey interactions and prey responses across multiple gene
In a world where insect pollinator declines are a reality, understanding their effects on the reproduction and persistence of wild plant species is vital to contribute to decisions for appropriate conservation strategies. This is especially true in areas which host a high species diversity, like European semi-natural grasslands. In fragmented habitats in particular, pollinator availability can be
With calls for increased greenery in cities to safeguard biodiversity and its associated benefits to humans, urban vegetation must be managed carefully and efficiently. It is time to change paths from current spurious attempts to manufacture resilience and instead usher in evidence-based urban greening to secure ecosystems for the future.
Despite the importance of mineral-associated organic matter (MAOM) in long-term soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) persistence, and the significant contribution of fungal necromass to this pool, the factors controlling the formation of fungal-derived MAOM remain unclear. This study investigated how fungal necromass chemistry, specifically melanin, interacts with soil mineral properties and microbial
Environmental heterogeneity in forest understories creates microhabitat niches that differ both spatially and temporally in light intensity and temperature. Do animal communities segregate in relation to these niche dimensions, and can this be explained by functional traits? Answering these questions is particularly important for insect pollinators, as they play a critical role in maintaining flow
Creating typologies of forest owners is a common approach for analyzing and understanding heterogeneity in responses to forest policies and management practice uptake. While many forest owner typologies have been developed, only a few quantitative methods dominate the field with little information on how methodological choice affects outcomes. In this study we compare five methods for quantitative
Transitioning to low-input agricultural systems such as organic farming has been acknowledged as a way to mitigate negative effects of agriculture on biodiversity. However, the speed, magnitude and context dependence of biodiversity recovery after converting to organic farming remain uncertain. In this study, we explored the response of plant communities to time since transition to organic farming
Flowering time is an important phenological trait in plants and a critical determinant of the success of pollination and fruit or seed development, with immense significance for agriculture as it directly affects crop yield and overall food production. Shifts in the growth season, changes in the growth season duration and changes in the production rate are environmental processes (potentially link
Reconciling biodiversity conservation with agricultural production requires a better understanding of how key ecosystem service providing species respond to agricultural intensification. Carabid beetles and spiders represent two widespread guilds providing biocontrol services. Here we surveyed carabid beetles and spiders in 66 winter wheat fields in four northwestern European countries and analyze
Intra-seasonal variation in abiotic and biotic conditions can have profound consequences for pollinator community compositions and foraging movement, with flow-on effects upon pollination services. Yet, few studies have related such variations to pollination services in crop systems. In a cultivated highbush blueberry system with two primary pollinators — the managed European honey bee and a wild
The widespread decline of insect pollinators poses a conservation concern and threatens both the pollination of wild plants and crops. Primary drivers of pollinator decline are habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation, which to a large extent result from agricultural intensification. Numerous tools have been developed to aid decision-making relating to insect pollinators and pollination in agri
The Paris agreement on climate change requires rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. One important mitigation strategy, at least in the intermediate future, is the substitution of fossil fuels with bioenergy. However, using agriculture- and forest-derived biomass for energy has sparked controversy regarding both the climate mitigation potential and conflicts with biodiversity conservation.
Ecological intensification has been embraced with great interest by the academic sector but is still rarely taken up by farmers because monitoring the state of different ecological functions is not straightforward. Modelling tools can represent a more accessible alternative of measuring ecological functions, which could help promote their use amongst farmers and other decision-makers. In the case
Invasive species are predicted to adjust their morphological, physiological and life-history traits to adapt to their non-native environments. Although a loss of genetic variation during invasion may restrict local adaptation, introduced species often thrive in novel environments. Despite being founded by just a few individuals, Bombus terrestris (Hymenoptera: Apidae) has in less than 30 years suc
Pollinators benefit from increasing floral resources in agricultural landscapes, which could be an underexplored co-benefit of mass-flowering crop cultivation. However, the impacts of mass-flowering crops on pollinator communities are complex and appear to be context-dependent, mediated by factors such as crop flowering time and the availability of other flower resources in the landscape. A synthe
Introduced social insects can be highly invasive outside of their native range. Around the world, the introduction and establishment of the eusocial bumblebee Bombus terrestris (L. 1758) (Hymenoptera: Apidae) has negatively impacted native pollinators and ecosystems. Understanding how morphological variation is linked to environmental variation across invasive ranges can indicate how rapidly speci
Conservation biological control of crop pests by natural enemies relies on management strategies to favour their trophic interactions. In agricultural landscapes, natural enemies acting across habitat boundaries may feed on non-pest prey, resulting in apparent competition between non-pest prey and pests. Such communities, including pests, non-pest prey, and natural enemies have been shown to be af
Most flowering plants depend on insect pollinators for their reproduction, yet these pollinators have been facing considerable losses in abundance and diversity in recent decades. The ongoing pollinator declines, caused by stressors including land-use and climate change, have raised concerns for species-rich plant communities such as those found in semi-natural grasslands. These communities contai
