Authors
Gisela Lüscher, Andrew E Whittington, PK Gillingham
Publication date
2016/7/31
Journal
Ecology
Volume
97
Issue
6
Pages
1625
Description
Farmland is a major land cover type in Europe and Africa and provides habitat for numerous species. The severe decline in farmland biodiversity of the last decades has been attributed to changes in farming practices, and organic and low-input farming are assumed to mitigate detrimental effects of agricultural intensification on biodiversity. Since the farm enterprise is the primary unit of agricultural decision making, management-related effects at the field-scale need to be assessed at the farm level. Therefore, in this study, data were collected on habitat characteristics, vascular plant, earthworm, spider and bee communities and on the corresponding agricultural management in 237 farms in 13 European and 2 African regions. In 15 environmental and agricultural homogeneous regions, 6 – 20 farms with the same farm type (e.g. arable crops, grassland or specific permanent crops) were selected. If available, an equal number of organic and non-organic farms were randomly selected. Alternatively, farms were sampled along a gradient of management intensity. For all selected farms, the entire farmed area was mapped, which resulted in total in the mapping of 11,338 units attributed to 194 standardized habitat types, provided together with additional descriptors. On each farm, one site per available habitat type was randomly selected for species diversity investigations. Species were sampled on 2,115 sites and identified to the species level by expert taxonomists. Species lists and abundance estimates are provided for each site and sampling date (one date for plants and earthworms, three dates for spiders and bees). In addition, farmers provided …
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