Persistent negative effects of pesticides on biodiversity and biological control potential on European farmland

During the last 50 years, agricultural intensification has caused many wild plant and animal species to go extinct regionally or nationally and has profoundly changed the functioning of agro-ecosystems. Agricultural intensification has many components, such as loss of landscape elements, enlarged farm and field sizes and larger inputs of fertilizer and pesticides. However, very little is known about the relative contribution of these variables to the large-scale negative effects on biodiversity. In this study, we disentangled the impacts of various components of agricultural intensification on species diversity of wild plants, carabids and ground-nesting farmland birds and on the biological control of aphids. In a Europe-wide study in eight West and East European countries, we found important negative effects of agricultural intensification on wild plant, carabid and bird species diversity and on the potential for biological pest control, as estimated from the number of aphids taken by predators. Of the 13 components of intensification we measured, use of insecticides and fungicides had consistent negative effects on biodiversity. Insecticides also reduced the biological control potential. Organic farming and other agri-environment schemes aiming to mitigate the negative e front matter & 2009 Gesellschaft für Ökologie. Published by Elsevier Gmbh. All rights reserved. ae.2009.12.001 ing author. Tel.: þ31 317 484973; fax: þ31 317 419000. ess: [email protected] (F. Berendse).