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The Structure and Dynamics of Agricultural Landscapes as Drivers of Biodiversity

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Book cover Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture

Abstract

The study of the relationships between agriculture and biodiversity is important to sustain biodiversity for the future. The landscape level has an influence, which has been until now mainly related to the importance of semi-natural elements. But in agricultural areas crop land is often dominant and acts on biodiversity by the resources it provides and the effects of disturbances induced by agricultural practices. The mosaic of crops is ephemeral and highly dynamic in space and time according to farming practices and crop rotations. The aim of this chapter is to assess the role of agricultural landscape heterogeneity on biodiversity. Landscape heterogeneity may be measured from different perspectives, considering non-cropped areas versus crop ones, or taking into consideration the dynamics of the mosaic of crops and agricultural practices. From studies on a long term ecological research site in Brittany, France, we present how these different approaches of landscape heterogeneity allow a better understanding of the diversity of processes driving biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Most of all we underline the necessity to include knowledge of farming systems and farming practices in the analyses.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Wild bees comprise of social species (Bombus sp.) and solitary bees (even if different forms of primitive or advanced social behavior exist in some species). Our study only focuses on solitary bees, which represent more than 80 % of wild bee species in Europe.

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Acknowledgments

LTER research is supported by the zone atelier program of INEE-CNRS, additional support is provided by INRA, the ministry of environment, the European Union and the National Research Agency. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UMR Ecobio, CNRS Université de Rennes 1, bât 14, campus de Beaulieu, 35042, Rennes cedex, France

    Francoise Burel

  2. INRA SAD Paysage, 65 rue de Saint Brieuc, 35642, Rennes cedex, France

    Stephanie Aviron, Jacques Baudry & Chloe Vasseur

  3. INRA, UR406 Abeilles et Environnement, Site Agroparc, Domaine Saint-Paul, 84914, Avignon cedex 9, France

    Violette Le Féon

Authors
  1. Francoise Burel
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  2. Stephanie Aviron
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  3. Jacques Baudry
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  4. Violette Le Féon
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  5. Chloe Vasseur
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Correspondence to Francoise Burel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Res. Center for Eco-Environmental Sci., Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, People's Republic

    Bojie Fu

  2. University of Nevada, Desert Research Institute University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

    K. Bruce Jones

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Burel, F., Aviron, S., Baudry, J., Le Féon, V., Vasseur, C. (2013). The Structure and Dynamics of Agricultural Landscapes as Drivers of Biodiversity . In: Fu, B., Jones, K. (eds) Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6530-6_14

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