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Pollination is an essential process in the sexual reproduction of seed plants and a key ecosystem service to human welfare. Animal pollinators decline as a consequence of five major global change pressures: climate change, landscape alteration, agricultural intensification, non-native species, and spread of pathogens. These pressures, which differ in their biotic or abiotic nature and their spatio
Pollinator populations have suffered severe declines in many industrialised countries due to reduced floral and nesting resources, brought on by agricultural intensification. One potential method of mitigating these effects is creating flower strips. Most previous studies have shown higher pollinator abundances in flower strips, but none have been able to demonstrate increased pollinator abundance
Increasing landscape heterogeneity and organic farming practices are known to enhance species richness in agroecosystems. However, little is known about the consequences of these management options on other biodiversity components such as community composition, phylogenetic structure and functional diversity which may be more closely linked to ecosystem
Agricultural intensification has resulted in large-scale loss of bee pollinators, but while some species have been negatively affected others seem to endure changed conditions. It has been suggested that certain morphological, ecological and life-history traits make some species more vulnerable to landscape changes. Information on which traits make species vulnerable and why may aid conservation o
Having historically been abundant throughout Europe, the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) has in recent decades suffered severe population declines in many urban and rural areas. The decline in rural environments is believed to be caused by agricultural intensification, which has resulted in landscape simplification. We used giving-up densities (GUDs) of house sparrows feeding in artificial food
Pollination is a key ecosystem service which most often has been studied in isolation although effects of pollination on seed set might depend on, and interact with, other services important for crop production. We tested three competing hypotheses on how insect pollination and pest control might jointly affect seed set: independent, compensatory or synergistic effects. For this, we performed a ca
Crop diversification and maintenance of semi-natural habitats (grasslands and field boundaries) are suggested to enhance farmland biodiversity, but the relative importance of these factors remains poorly known. We evaluated how crop diversity and availability of semi-natural grasslands at a landscape-scale interacted with local farming management (three management types from low to high intensity:
Spatial data is an important and necessary ingredient in the disaster management cycle. The preparedness phase requires simulation of disastrous events, identification of disaster management hotspots and creation of hazard- and risk maps. A rapid response in the event of a disaster requires good situational awareness and fast sharing of that knowledge across the community. Further, in the recovery
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
Nature-based solutions (NBS) is the latest contribution to the green concept family. NBS is defined as actions based in nature addressing societal challenges. In this study, we lean on the concept boundary object, broken down into three analytical categories: use, core ideas and granularities, to explore the cohesive and fragmenting powers of the NBS concept, and discuss its future role in green s
The idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win–win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on pests are inconclusive. The observed heterogeneity
There is widespread concern regarding declines in bee populations given their importance for the functioning of both natural and managed ecosystems. An increasing number of studies find negative relations between bee species richness and simplification of agricultural landscapes, but the role of land-use intensity and its relative importance compared to landscape simplification remain less clear.
Insect-mediated pollination increases yields of many crop species and some evidence suggests that it also influences crop quality. However, the mechanistic linkages between insect-mediated pollination and crop quality are poorly known. In this study, we explored how different pollination treatments affected fruit set, dry matter content (DMC), mineral content and storability of apples. Apple flowe
Interactions between multiple stressors have been implicated in elevated honeybee colony losses. Here, we extend our landscape-scale study on the effects of placement at clothianidin seed-treated oilseed rape fields on honeybees with an additional year and new data on honeybee colony development, swarming, mortality, pathogens and immune gene expression. Clothianidin residues in pollen, nectar and
Extensively managed grasslands are recognized globally for their high biodiversity and their social and cultural values. However, their capacity to deliver multiple ecosystem services (ES) as parts of agricultural systems is surprisingly understudied compared to other production systems. We undertook a comprehensive overview of ES provided by natural and semi-natural grasslands, using southern Afr
Stakeholder interaction is important for enabling environmental research to support the societal transition to sustainability. We argue that it is crucial to take researchers’ approaches to and perceptions of stakeholder interaction into account, to enable more clarity in discussions about interaction, as well as more systematic interaction approaches. Through a survey and focus group interviews w
How insects promote crop pollination remains poorly understood in terms of the contribution of functional trait differences between species. We used meta-analyses to test for correlations between community abundance, species richness and functional trait metrics with oilseed rape yield, a globally important crop. While overall abundance is consistently important in predicting yield, functional div
