Landscape-scale diversity of plants, bumblebees and butterflies in mixed farm-forest landscapes of Northern Europe: Clear-cuts do not compensate for the negative effects of plantation forest cover
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Date
2022-10
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
To assess the biodiversity consequences of contemporary land-use trends in Northern Europe, where agriculture is being replaced by forestry, we need a better knowledge of the contributions of constituting habitats to biodiversity. Here, we use purposefully collected data from 87 sites to model how agricultural habitats, including semi-natural pastures, sown temporary grassland (leys), cereal crops, and forest habitats comprising both mature production forests and clear-cuts, contribute to landscape-scale diversity of plants, bumblebees and butterflies in boreonemoral Sweden. At the local scale, species richness was highest in semi-natural pastures, intermediate in cereal crops and leys and lowest in forest. In clear-cuts, species richness was similarly high to that in semi-natural pastures. Countryside species-area models show that at a landscape scale, the high local richness in clear-cuts was more than offset by the low species richness encountered in forest. At landscape scale, semi-natural pastures, and in the case of plants also cereal crops, were major contributors of unique species. Leys and semi-natural pastures were both important contributors to bumblebee diversity. The effect of the surrounding landscape composition on local diversity was weak, suggesting that area-based approximations of landscape-scale species richness were reasonable. We conclude that clear-cuts constitute habitats for open-land species but cannot maintain landscape -scale diversity in the face of agricultural abandonment when open land is replaced by even-aged production forests. Maintaining farmland, in particular semi-natural pastures but also cereals and leys, is therefore critical to maintaining the landscape-scale species richness of plants and insects in forestry-dominated areas.
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published
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Journal / series
Volume
274
Pages / Article No.
109728
Publisher
Elsevier
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Subject
Countryside species area relationship; Farmland afforestation; High nature value farmland; Grassland ley; Pollinator diversity; Semi -natural grassland
Organisational unit
09719 - Deiner, Kristy (ehemalig) / Deiner, Kristy (former)