As a result of increasingly intensified agricultural practices in Europe over the last century, agroecosystems have experienced severe biodiversity declines. Among the species experiencing negative population trajectories in agricultural habitats are meadow and farmland birds, which have suffered a loss in both habitat and food availability in cultivated fields. In Denmark, biotope plans (a requirement to establish small agro-environmental habitats on properties with stocking of game birds) have been implemented as a measure to mitigate biodiversity declines in the agricultural landscape and, in this paper, we investigate to what extent these initiatives fulfil the intended purpose with respect to birds in the breeding season. We demonstrate that some initiatives like hedgerows, areas of open vegetation, scrub, and lakes seemed to increase avian diversity locally, but also that other measures such as vegetation strips, grass strips, and bare soil strips had little effect given the current implementation of these initiatives. Benefitting species were mostly scrub- and woodland species that now inhabited previously open landscapes after the establishment of suitable habitats, and the initiatives failed to show clear positive effects on meadow birds and farmland birds for which they were originally intended. The most commonly registered species in our data set was (released) Pheasant Phasianus colchicus, which emphasised that the stocking of game birds can have a clear effect on avian species composition in areas where this practice is exercised. Future studies are needed to clarify how this stocking may affect local biodiversity of different taxonomic groups.

Intensive use of external inputs in specialized industrial farming systems has created significant socio-ecological externalities, including water and air pollution from nutrients and pesticides, soil erosion and depletion of carbon stocks, biodiversity loss and rising production costs. Ecological intensification is a strategy for reducing reliance on inputs by intentionally designing agroecosystems to harness biological processes and ecological relationships for the sustainable functioning of the system. Incorporating perennials and diversifying systems are two avenues for achieving ecological intensification, and both are characteristics of agroforestry. This preliminary report uses examples of agroforestry in the US state of California as a proof of concept to explore the agronomic and economic feasibility and sustainability benefits of agroforestry in intensive irrigated and temperate farming systems. An exploratory study of farmers experimenting with agroforestry systems and other agricultural professionals identified eight different variants of agroforestry systems being practiced on prime agricultural land in California, ranging from simple use of winter cover crops in orchards to multi-storied cropping systems with integrated grazing. Respondents noted benefits of reduced inputs and production costs, and better nutrient cycling, soil health and pest control. Trade-offs and challenges included increases in labor requirements and management complexity. Knowledge gaps included lack of guidance in biophysical systems design, lack of clarity about economic tradeoffs, and lack of information about ecosystem services benefits. In light of interviewees’ responses, we discuss the constraints and factors needed to foster the successful expansion of agroforestry systems in California and other regions characterized by industrialized farming.

Field experiments were conducted to investigate the mechanism underlying patterns of the rove beetle populations in apple and pear orchards (1998–2002) and winter wheat (2006–2007) in Hungary following treatment with broad-spectrum insecticide. The capacity of predatory staphylinid species to feed on cereal pests was measured, with six species tested in petri dishes, in the laboratory at room temperature. Almost 23% of the Hungarian and 13% of the European staphylinid fauna are represented in the investigated agro-ecosystems. In orchards, 5236 individuals, belonging to 253 species, were collected. The most widely occurring were Omalium caesum Gravenhorst, Drusilla canaliculata (F.), Dinaraea angustula (Gyllenhal), Palporus nitidulus (F.), Xantholinus. longiventris (Olivier), X. linearis (Olivier) and Aleochara bipustulata (L.). In winter wheat, 798 individuals and 20 species were collected, the most frequent were Staphylinus caesareus Cederh, Tachyporus hypnorum (F.), Philonthus cognatus (Stephens), Aloconota gregaria (Erichson), Tachyporus chrysomelinus (L.) and T. obtusus (L.). Species composition differed by crop (apple, pear and wheat), soil composition and surrounding habitat. Species diversity was also influenced by these parameters. In wheat, one acute change in species composition was observed with the decline of Tachyporus spp., which occurred equally across all farms. The consumption rate of prey by the dominant species occurring in wheat ecosystems was relatively high; however, we did not offer any fungal food to compare with insects' prey.

Although the importance of hedgerows for sustainable agriculture and conservation of rural biodiversity is increasingly being recognized, obtaining insight into the spatial and temporal dynamics of hedgerow networks remains an important challenge for landscape ecologists, with the key factors driving changes in rural landscape structure especially deserving further attention. The present study analyses the long-term history of a hedgerow network landscape in Flanders, Belgium. A detailed reconstruction of the hedgerow network is made at five points in time, starting at the end of the 18th century until present, for 367 distinct 400 m×400 m samples. Whilst hedgerows were mainly concentrated around historical village centres and within valleys at the end of 18th century, the network expanded progressively during the 19th century. In the 20th century, the hedgerow network degraded strongly, with hedgerow density and connectivity declining and mesh-size heterogeneity and network fragmentation increasing, although the network recovered slightly during the 1990s. Different trajectories of change in hedgerow network structure were observed depending on landscape position, with both topography and village proximity significantly affecting hedgerow network dynamics. The present network structure was mainly governed by land use, with highly developed networks being predominantly associated with pasture. Three main conclusions arise from the results of this study. First, the role of land use and landscape position as basic factors steering hedgerow network dynamics at the landscape scale is demonstrated. Second, the long-term perspective of the study enabled insight into the poorly known expansion phase of hedgerow networks, linked mainly with the development of small-scale labour-intensive agriculture. Finally, the findings confirm the large-scale degradation of linear semi-natural habitats in European agricultural landscapes during most of the 20th century, and indicate that a pro-active rural policy can halt and even reverse this process.