FarmLand

European network on farmland heterogeneity, biodiversity and ecosystem services

Objectives

• Disentangle the relationships between landscape heterogeneity and plant or animal diversity;
• Assess the links between landscape heterogeneity and ecosystem services and
• Study the diversity of farming systems, and the farmers’ mental models of the ecological functioning of their farms.

To meet these objectives, FarmLand is asking the following questions in seven European agricultural regions (one in Germany, four in France, one in the United Kingdom and one in Spain) plus one Canadian region:

1. Does biodiversity change with increasing compositional heterogeneity of crop types in the landscape?
2. Does biodiversity change with increasing configurational heterogeneity of crop types in the landscape?
3. What measures of farmland biodiversity are most strongly related to provision of regulating (pollination, biological control), supporting and cultural ecosystem services?
4. How can we build collectively acceptable guidelines that will create spatial patterns of farmland that promote biodiversity-based ecosystem services?