Land-use and land-cover change associated with agriculture is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss (Deguines et al., 2014; Sala et al., 2000; Tscharntke et al., 2005). The conversion of grasslands to crop fields greatly limits the resources available to native species, resulting in biodiversity loss, which threatens the delivery of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes (Balvanera et al., 2006; Cardinale et al., 2012; Hooper et al., 2005). Maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services delivery is contingent on the quantity of perennial cover in agroecosystems, as well as the diversity and abundance of resources that remaining semi-natural areas provide for wildlife species (Duelli & Obrist, 2003; Hendrickx et al., 2007; Ockinger & Smith, 2007). In the United States, perennial cover in agricultural landscapes is often the result of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which pays farmers to replant marginal croplands with perennial grasses and legumes (Farm Service Agency, 2019). The amount of biodiversity present on the landscape is greatly affected by how these semi-natural areas are managed (Benayas et al., 2009), the residual effects of previous land uses (Hahn & Orrock, 2015; Moranz et al., 2012), and the influence of commodity crop prices (Wright & Wimberly, 2013) and policies that incentivize conservation practices (Ravetto Enri et al., 2020) on the profitability of different land uses. There is an urgent need to quantify the effects of management choices on biodiversity in agricultural landscapes.
Cattle grazing results in greater floral resources and pollinators than sheep grazing in low-diversity grasslands
Year: 2022
