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Increasing landscape complexity can mitigate negative effects of agricultural intensification on biodiversity by offering resources complementary to those provided in arable fields. In particular, grazed semi-natural grasslands and woody elements support farmland birds, but little is known about their relative effects on bird diversity and community composition. In addition, the relative importanc
Climate change is increasingly posing a threat to biodiversity, both through its direct effects on organisms and through indirect effects resulting from changes in land use. Preserving biodiversity is an ethical obligation, but it is also increasingly being realised that biodiversity contributes to ecosystem services, i.e. ecosystem processes important for human needs and prosperity. In order to a
Ecological compensation is the latest member of a growing family of concepts aimed at reducing degradation of environmental quality. This and other concepts of the family – like ecosystem services, green infrastructure, and nature-based solutions – have been subject to a range of different interpretations and subsequent implementation practices. The result is a complex governance system with uncle
Eucalyptus plantations have been established in many areas of the world due to their fast growth and profitability. In NW Spain, Eucalyptus plantations now cover a larger area than native forests. Although Eucalyptus plantations have been shown to affect biodiversity, relatively few studies have compared their effect on multiple taxonomic groups and different aspects of biodiversity. We compared h
Declines in European farmland birds over past decades have been attributed to the combined effects of agricultural intensification and abandonment. Consequently, aspirations to stop declines should focus attention on reversing these changes through voluntary or policy-driven interventions. The design of such interventions should ideally be informed by scientific knowledge of which aspects of the t
Human land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield-related ecosystem services can be maintained by a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for
Soil organic matter (SOM) stores the largest quantity of C in terrestrial ecosystems. Most SOM can be decomposed by microorganisms and released as CO2 into the atmosphere. The remaining fraction of SOM can be resistant against microbial decomposition over centuries to millennia. Changes in the magnitude of this stable SOM pool can have a substantial effect on the atmospheric CO2 concentration and
Action-based payments that compensate farmers for adopting land-management measures to preserve and en- hance the environment have been criticized for being ineffective. The root of the problem is that farmers are not paid for achieving a desired environmental benefit, but compensated for their costs of management. There is growing interest in formulating result-based economic incentives. By payin
Local adaptation to rare habitats is difficult due to gene flow, but can occur if the habitat has higher productivity. Differences in offspring phenotypes have attracted little attention in this context. We model a scenario where the rarer habitat improves offspring's later competitive ability – a carryover effect that operates on top of local adaptation to one or the other habitat type. Assuming
The spatiotemporal stability of wild organisms, such as flower-visiting insects, is critical to guarantee high levels of biodiversity in agroecosystems. Whereas the proportion of semi-natural habitats in the landscapes has been shown to stabilize the species richness of flower visitors, the effect of farming intensity has not yet been studied. In this study, we compared the temporal and spatial st
It is generally expected that, in environments with pronounced seasonal resource peaks, birds’ reproductive success will be maximised when nestlings’ peak food demand coincides with the timing of high food availability. However in certain birds that stay resident over winter, earlier breeding leads juveniles to join the winter flock earlier, which by the prior residence effect increases their succ
To understand the relationship between conservation measures and agricultural yields, we need to know the contributions of organisms to both ecosystem services and disservices. We studied the activity and contribution of birds and mammals to intermediate ecosystem services (predation of weed seeds or invertebrate pests) and disservices (predation of crop seeds or beneficial invertebrates) in south
Loss and fragmentation of semi-natural grasslands have had negative consequences for grassland biodiversity, such as butterflies. Urban parks and other urban green spaces have so far largely been overlooked as suitable butterfly habitats, although they could potentially sustain diverse butterfly populations over time. We analysed the temporal change in butterfly species assemblages in urban green
Neonicotinoids are implicated in bee declines and laboratory studies imply that they impair the bee immune system, thereby precipitating a rise in pathogen levels. To establish whether such synergisms reduce bee performance in real-world agricultural landscapes, we analysed the microbial composition of the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) samples from our recent landscape study on the impacts of fiel
While urbanisation contributes to global biodiversity declines, flower-rich urban habitats may provide beneficial pollinator habitats. We investigated the potential of urban residential areas to contribute to pollinator diversity by analysing wild bee and hoverfly species richness and composition of species assemblages of summer-active species, sampled in 53 gardens across urban and rural landscap
Do the misty mountains, fast-flowing rivers, and sandy beaches leave you in awe and fill you with insatiable wonder? Does nature bring you a jubilant feeling? Nature contributes to our quality of life in multiple ways. Some of these gifts are easily visible, like the clothes you wear, the food you eat, and the water your drink. However, some contributions, such as flood protection and pollination
We report here a method for the determination of the pKa of histidine in complex or heterogeneous systems amenable to neither solid-state nor solution NMR spectroscopy. Careful synthesis of a fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl- and trityl-protected, C2-deuterated histidine produces a vibrational-probe-equipped amino acid that can readily be incorporated into any peptide accessible by standard solid-phase
Increasing human impact on the environment is causing drastic changes in disturbance regimes and how they prevail over time. Of increasing relevance is to further our understanding on biological responses to pulse disturbances (short duration) and how they interact with other ongoing press disturbances (constantly present). Because the temporal and spatial contexts of single experiments often limi
