Food production and biodiversity are not incompatible in temperate heterogeneous agricultural landscapes

Abstract

We need landscape-scale approaches to design and manage agro-ecosystems that can sustain both agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. In this study, yield figures provided by 299 farmers served to quantify the energy-equivalents of food production across different crops in 49 1-km2 landscapes. Our results show that the relationship between bird diversity and food energy production depends on the proportion of farmland within the landscape, with a negative correlation observed in agriculture dominated landscapes (≥ 64–74% farmland). In contrast, neither typical farmland birds nor butterflies showed any significant relationship with total food energy production. We conclude that in European temperate regions consisting of small-scale, mixed farming systems (arable and livestock production), productivity and biodiversity conservation may not be purely antagonistic, particularly when (semi-)natural habitats make up a large fraction of the landscape (≥ 20%).