| Literature DB >> 24958283 |
Manuel K Schneider1, Gisela Lüscher2, Philippe Jeanneret1, Michaela Arndorfer3, Youssef Ammari4, Debra Bailey1, Katalin Balázs5, András Báldi6, Jean-Philippe Choisis7, Peter Dennis8, Sebastian Eiter9, Wendy Fjellstad9, Mariecia D Fraser8, Thomas Frank3, Jürgen K Friedel3, Salah Garchi4, Ilse R Geijzendorffer10, Tiziano Gomiero11, Guillermo Gonzalez-Bornay12, Andy Hector13, Gergely Jerkovich8, Rob H G Jongman14, Esezah Kakudidi15, Max Kainz16, Anikó Kovács-Hostyánszki6, Gerardo Moreno12, Charles Nkwiine15, Julius Opio15, Marie-Louise Oschatz3, Maurizio G Paoletti17, Philippe Pointereau18, Fernando J Pulido12, Jean-Pierre Sarthou19, Norman Siebrecht16, Daniele Sommaggio17, Lindsay A Turnbull13, Sebastian Wolfrum16, Felix Herzog1.
Abstract
Organic farming is promoted to reduce environmental impacts of agriculture, but surprisingly little is known about its effects at the farm level, the primary unit of decision making. Here we report the effects of organic farming on species diversity at the field, farm and regional levels by sampling plants, earthworms, spiders and bees in 1470 fields of 205 randomly selected organic and nonorganic farms in twelve European and African regions. Species richness is, on average, 10.5% higher in organic than nonorganic production fields, with highest gains in intensive arable fields (around +45%). Gains to species richness are partly caused by higher organism abundance and are common in plants and bees but intermittent in earthworms and spiders. Average gains are marginal +4.6% at the farm and +3.1% at the regional level, even in intensive arable regions. Additional, targeted measures are therefore needed to fulfil the commitment of organic farming to benefit farmland biodiversity.Entities:
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Year: 2014 PMID： 24958283 DOI： 10.1038/ncomms5151
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Nat Commun ISSN： 2041-1723 Impact factor: 14.919