Biodiversity conservation in agriculture requires a multi-scale approach.

ABSTRACT: Biodiversity loss--one of the most prominent forms of modern environmental change--has been heavily driven by terrestrial habitat loss and, in particular, the spread and intensification of agriculture. Expanding agricultural land-use has led to the search for strong conservation strategies, with some suggesting that biodiversity conservation in agriculture is best maximized by reducing local management intensity, such as fertilizer and pesticide application. Others highlight the importance of landscape-level approaches that incorporate natural or semi-natural areas in landscapes surrounding farms. Here, we show that both of these practices are valuable to the conservation of biodiversity, and that either local or landscape factors can be most crucial to conservation planning depending on w

SUBMITTER: Gonthier DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4132690 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature