1 research outputs found
The Potential to Save Agrestal Plant Species in an Intensively Managed Agricultural Landscape through Organic FarmingāA Case Study from Northern Germany
Intensive agriculture is among the main drivers of diversity decline worldwide. In Central
Europe, pressures related with agriculture include habitat loss due to the consolidation of farming
units, pesticide and fertilizer use, and shortened crop rotations. In recent decades, this development
has resulted in a severe decline of agrestal plant communities. Organic farming has been suggested
as a biodiversity friendly way of farming, as it strongly restricts the use of synthetic pesticides and
fertilizers and relies on longer crop rotations. It may thus help in saving agrestal plant communities in
the future. In this study, we assessed the long-term effects of three types of arable ļ¬eld management
(conventional farming, organic farming, and bio-dynamic farming) on three farms in the federal state
of Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany. We collected data on above-ground plant communities
and seed banks and analyzed them with regards to the impact of the farming system and their position
in the ļ¬eld using nonmetric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) and linear mixed effects models
(LME) combined with ANOVA and Tukey contrast tests. Plants in organically or bio-dynamically
managed ļ¬elds differed in their composition and traits from those occurring in conventionally
managed ļ¬elds, i.e., they showed a preference for higher temperatures and were dominated by
insect-pollinated species. While conventional farming had negative effects on vegetation and the seed
bank, organic and bio-dynamic farms had neutral or slightly positive effects on both. This highlights
the potential of the latter two to conserve species even in an intensively managed landscape. In
addition, this may halt or even reverse the decrease in arthropod, bird, and mammal species, since
agrestal plants constitute an important component of food-webs in agricultural landscapes