Impacts of selected Ecological Focus Area options in European farmed landscapes on climate regulation and pollination services: a systematic map protocol

Background: This systematic map protocol responds to an urgent policy need to evaluate key environmental benefits of new compulsory greening measures in the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), with the aim of building a policy better linked to environmental performance. The systematic map will focus on Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs), in which larger arable farmers must dedicate 5% of their arable land to ecologically beneficial habitats, landscape features and land uses. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has used a software tool called the ‘EFA calculator’ to inform the European Commission about environmental benefits of EFA implementation. However, there are gaps in the EFA calculator’s coverage of ecosystem services, especially ‘global climate regulation’, and an opportunity to use systematic mapping methods to enhance its capture of evidence, in advance of forthcoming CAP reforms. We describe a method for assembling a database of relevant, peer-reviewed research conducted in all agricultural landscapes in Europe and neighbouring countries with similar biogeography, addressing the primary question: what are the impacts of selected EFA features in agricultural land on two policy-relevant ecosystem service outcomes—global climate regulation and pollination? The method is streamlined to allow results in good time for the current, time-limited opportunity to influence reforms of the CAP greening measures at European and Member State level. Methods: We will search four bibliographic databases in English, using a predefined and tested search string that focuses on a subset of EFA options and ecosystem service outcomes. The options and outcomes are selected as those with particular policy relevance and traction. Only articles in English will be included. We will screen search results at title, abstract and full text levels, recording the number of studies deemed non-relevant (with reasons at full text). A systematic map database that displays the meta-data (i.e. descriptive summary information about settings and methods) of relevant studies will be produced following full text assessment. The systematic map database will be published as a MS-Excel database. The nature and extent of the evidence base will be discussed, and the applicability of methods to convert the available evidence into EFA calculator scores will be assessed

Garden and landscape-scale correlates of moths of differing conservation status: significant effects of urbanization and habitat diversity

Moths are abundant and ubiquitous in vegetated terrestrial environments and are pollinators, important herbivores of wild plants, and food for birds, bats and rodents. In recent years, many once abundant and widespread species have shown sharp declines that have been cited by some as indicative of a widespread insect biodiversity crisis. Likely causes of these declines include agricultural intensification, light pollution, climate change, and urbanization; however, the real underlying cause(s) is still open to conjecture. We used data collected from the citizen science Garden Moth Scheme (GMS) to explore the spatial association between the abundance of 195 widespread British species of moth, and garden habitat and landscape features, to see if spatial habitat and landscape associations varied for species of differing conservation status. We found that associations with habitat and landscape composition were species-specific, but that there were consistent trends in species richness and total moth abundance. Gardens with more diverse and extensive microhabitats were associated with higher species richness and moth abundance; gardens near to the coast were associated with higher richness and moth abundance; and gardens in more urbanized locations were associated with lower species richness and moth abundance. The same trends were also found for species classified as increasing, declining and vulnerable under IUCN (World Conservation Union) criteria

Food for pollinators: quantifying the nectar and pollen resources of urban flower meadows

Planted meadows are increasingly used to improve the biodiversity and aesthetic amenity value of urban areas. Although many ‘pollinator-friendly’ seed mixes are available, the floral resources these provide to flower-visiting insects, and how these change through time, are largely unknown. Such data are necessary to compare the resources provided by alternative meadow seed mixes to each other and to other flowering habitats. We used quantitative surveys of over 2 million flowers to estimate the nectar and pollen resources offered by two exemplar commercial seed mixes (one annual, one perennial) and associated weeds grown as 300m2 meadows across four UK cities, sampled at six time points between May and September 2013. Nectar sugar and pollen rewards per flower varied widely across 65 species surveyed, with native British weed species (including dandelion, Taraxacum agg.) contributing the top five nectar producers and two of the top ten pollen producers. Seed mix species yielding the highest rewards per flower included Leontodon hispidus, Centaurea cyanus and C. nigra for nectar, and Papaver rhoeas, Eschscholzia californica and Malva moschata for pollen. Perennial meadows produced up to 20x more nectar and up to 6x more pollen than annual meadows, which in turn produced far more than amenity grassland controls. Perennial meadows produced resources earlier in the year than annual meadows, but both seed mixes delivered very low resource levels early in the year and these were provided almost entirely by native weeds. Pollen volume per flower is well predicted statistically by floral morphology, and nectar sugar mass and pollen volume per unit area are correlated with flower counts, raising the possibility that resource levels can be estimated for species or habitats where they cannot be measured directly. Our approach does not incorporate resource quality information (for example, pollen protein or essential amino acid content), but can easily do so when suitable data exist. Our approach should inform the design of new seed mixes to ensure continuity in floral resource availability throughout the year, and to identify suitable species to fill resource gaps in established mixes

Data from: Animals alter precipitation legacies: trophic and ecosystem engineering effects on plant community temporal dynamics

1. Multi-year precipitation ‘legacies’ can have stronger effects on plant community composition than rainfall in the current growing season, but variation in the magnitude of these effects is not fully understood. Direct interactions between plants and animals, such as herbivory, and indirect interactions, such as ecosystem engineering (via changes in the physical environment), may influence precipitation legacies by altering mechanisms of lagged effects. However, the role of direct and indirect plant-animal interactions in determining the strength of precipitation legacies remains largely unexplored. 2. Here, we investigated effects of current growing season rainfall and precipitation legacies on grassland composition, and the influence of herbivory and ecosystem engineering interactions on these temporal dynamics. From 2009 to 2014, a period spanning high and low rainfall, we recorded plant cover in kangaroo rat exclosures and paired control plots that included both burrow and inter-burrow areas. We used linear mixed effects modeling and analysis of community dissimilarities to evaluate plant composition responses to current and previous growing season rainfall and kangaroo rat herbivory (presence of seed foraging) and ecosystem engineering (burrowing). 3. We found that community composition was more strongly affected by precipitation legacies than by current growing season rainfall. Greater precipitation in the previous growing season enhanced grass cover and reduced forb and legume cover. Kangaroo rat trophic and engineering interactions had counteracting effects on these legacies. While burrowing increased grass cover and thereby amplified the effects of previous growing season rainfall on community composition, legacies were suppressed by the presence of kangaroo rat foraging, which decreased grass cover. Further analysis revealed that kangaroo rat foraging and burrowing had conflicting effects on residual plant biomass prior to the growing season, suggesting that precipitation legacies were influenced by altered litter dynamics. 4. Synthesis. Our study demonstrates that animals can impact the strength of precipitation legacies through direct and indirect interactions with the plant species that drive lag effects. The influence of multiple types of plant-animal interactions on precipitation legacies may be important to consider for ecosystem management and when generating predictions of community composition and productivity in future ecosystems