Increasing crop heterogeneity enhances multitrophic diversity across agricultural regions

International audienceAgricultural landscape homogenization has detrimental effects on biodiversity and key ecosystem services. Increasing agricultural landscape heterogeneity by increasing seminatural cover can help to mitigate biodiversity loss. However, the amount of seminatural cover is generally low and difficult to increase in many intensively managed agricultural landscapes. We hypothesized that increasing the heterogeneity of the crop mosaic itself (hereafter “crop heterogeneity”) can also have positive effects on biodiversity. In 8 contrasting regions of Europe and North America, we selected 435 landscapes along independent gradients of crop diversity and mean field size. Within each landscape, we selected 3 sampling sites in 1, 2, or 3 crop types. We sampled 7 taxa (plants, bees, butterflies, hoverflies, carabids, spiders, and birds) and calculated a synthetic index of multitrophic diversity at the landscape level. Increasing crop heterogeneity was more beneficial for multitrophic diversity than increasing seminatural cover. For instance, the effect of decreasing mean field size from 5 to 2.8 ha was as strong as the effect of increasing seminatural cover from 0.5 to 11%. Decreasing mean field size benefited multitrophic diversity even in the absence of seminatural vegetation between fields. Increasing the number of crop types sampled had a positive effect on landscape-level multitrophic diversity. However, the effect of increasing crop diversity in the landscape surrounding fields sampled depended on the amount of seminatural cover. Our study provides large-scale, multitrophic, cross-regional evidence that increasing crop heterogeneity can be an effective way to increase biodiversity in agricultural landscapes without taking land out of agricultural production

Willow silage: exploring alternative techniques

status: accepte

Browse silage: winterfood in the zoo

status: publishe

Browse silage: winterfood in the zoo

Poster presentationstatus: publishe

Transgenerational Mental Health

Knowledge children need to know when one of their parents has a mental illness.In the research of Children Of Parents With a Mental Illness, the information given to children is evaluated. What children want to know is not searched for systematically. So professionals and people in the network of these children do not know what children need to know. The aim is to develop an instrument to measure what children need to know in the situation where a parent has a mental illness.Method.A literature search is executed. Also a qualitative survey among experts is done and analyzed. Based on that, several constructs will be selected and used for constructs for a Mental Health Literacy Scale for children to measure their needs for information.Results.No Mental Health Literacy Scale for children is found in the literature. Other results will be reported.Conclusion.Children in Families where a Parent has a Mental Illness (FaPMI) probably need to get specific information on the symptoms of mental illness, possibilities for child support etc. A developed scale can help to find out what information this will be. In the think tank we want to discuss the information that is needed