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BACKGROUND: The tropical rainforest biome plays a significant role in providing habitats for terrestrial biodiversity and delivering ecosystem service values, contributing to agricultural production. However, the increasing demand for tropical commodities with high economic value threatens this humid ecosystem and its biodiversity. To our knowledge, no studies have systematically mapped the relationship between the impacts of agricultural production on biodiversity and the effects of biodiversity on agricultural production in tropical rainforest areas. METHODS: Since we were interested in systematically mapping the evidence measuring the impact of tropical agriculture on biodiversity (Map 1), and the vice versa relations, the influence of biodiversity on tropical agriculture production (Map 2), we developed a respective set of search strings, eligibility criteria, and subsequently performed independent searching, screening, and data coding processes. We searched articles from six peer-reviewed databases and 22 gray literature sources. Articles were screened based on the inclusion criteria at the title, abstract, and full-text levels. Individual articles that passed full-text screening were coded and synthesized to create heatmaps. Selected information of interest was also extracted and visualized in the graphics which were clustered based on the year of publication, geographical distribution, type of rainforest, exposure, outcome, farm commodity, and study comparators. REVIEW FINDINGS: Two heatmaps were generated from a contrasting number of references, with heatmap 1 extracted from 222 studies and heatmap 2 derived from 10 times fewer references (n = 20). In heatmap 1, impacts of land conversion to aboveground biodiversity and wild species and ecosystem functions in natural ecosystems were the most common relationships examined, with 115 articles and 62 articles, respectively. Conversely, heatmap 2 showed evidence that focused predominantly on the examination of the links between the impacts of genetic resource diversity on environmental factors and soil management in tropical agricultural production, with four articles each exploring these relations. CONCLUSIONS: These systematic maps reveal that while studies investigating the impacts of tropical agricultural production on biodiversity were abundant, studies examining the impacts of biodiversity on tropical agricultural production were lacking despite both systematic maps experiencing an increasing trend of publication during 2000-2020. Map 1 emphasized the examination of the effects of land conversion on aboveground biodiversity, and on wild species and ecosystem functions. Map 2 highlighted the influence of crop genetic resources on environmental factors, and on soil management as the most frequently studied. The evidence cluster identified here can be the starting point for further systematic review study (to assess, for example, their cause-effect significance).

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Anthropogenic habitat modification can indirectly effect reproduction and survival in social species by changing the group structure and social interactions. We assessed the impact of habitat modification on the fitness and life history traits of a cooperative breeder, the Arabian babbler (Argya squamiceps). We collected spatial, reproductive and social data on 572 individuals belonging to 21 social groups over 6 years and combined it with remote sensing to characterize group territories in an arid landscape. In modified resource-rich habitats, groups bred more and had greater productivity, but individuals lived shorter lives than in natural habitats. Habitat modification favoured a faster pace-of-life with lower dispersal and dominance acquisition ages, which might be driven by higher mortality providing opportunities for the dominant breeding positions. Thus, habitat modification might indirectly impact fitness through changes in social structures. This study shows that trade-offs in novel anthropogenic opportunities might offset survival costs by increased productivity.

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Humans have been trying to understand animal behavior at least since recorded history. Recent rapid development of new technologies has allowed us to make significant progress in understanding the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying behavior, a key goal of neuroethology. However, there is a tradeoff when studying animal behavior and its underlying biological mechanisms: common behavior protocols in the laboratory are designed to be replicable and controlled, but they often fail to encompass the variability and breadth of natural behavior. This Commentary proposes a framework of 10 key questions that aim to guide researchers in incorporating a rich natural context into their experimental design or in choosing a new animal study system. The 10 questions cover overarching experimental considerations that can provide a template for interspecies comparisons, enable us to develop studies in new model organisms and unlock new experiments in our quest to understand behavior.

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Understanding the seasonal dynamics inherent to non-crop host-fruit fly-parasitoid interactions is vitally important for implementing eco-friendly pest control strategies. This study assessed the abundance and seasonal infestation levels of three pest fly species, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann), Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura), as well as the related saprophytic drosophilids, and their natural parasitism in a disturbed wild habitat characterized by non-crop hosts in northwestern Argentina over 40 months. Juglans australis Griseb (walnut), Citrus aurantium L. (sour orange), Eriobotrya japonica (Thunb.) Lindley (loquat), Prunus persica (L.) Batsch (peach), and Psydium guajava L. (guava) were sampled throughout their fruiting seasons. Fruits were collected from both the tree canopies and the ground. The most abundant puparia was A. fraterculus, followed by C. capitata and D. suzukii. Drosophila species from the D. melanogaster group were highly abundant only in fallen fruits. Spatiotemporal overlaps of different host fruit availability provided suitable sources for pest proliferation throughout the year. The populations of both invasive pests peaked from December to January, and were related to the highest ripe peach availability, whereas the A. fraterculus population peaked from February to April, overlapping with the guava fruiting period. The three pest fly species were parasitized mainly by three generalist resident parasitoids, which are potential biocontrol agents to use within an integrated pest management approach.

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BACKGROUND: Semi-natural habitats are generally considered to be beneficial to natural enemies of crop pests and pollinators. However, they could also be used by pests, such as the Cabbage Stem Flea Beetle (CSFB), Psylliodes chrysocephala, a major pest of winter oilseed rape, Brassica napus. Adults emerge from pupation in late spring and move to aestivation habitats. Published reports identify forest edges as the major shelter used, but flower strips may also constitute an alternative habitat. This study aimed to: (i) determine the role of perennial flower strips in CSFB aestivation in comparison with woodland edges; (ii) determine the influence of landscape composition on the abundance of aestivating CSFB and (iii) identify the characteristics of the local habitat associated with a high abundance of aestivating CSFB. RESULTS: CSFB emergence from aestivation was monitored with emergence traps from mid-August to mid-October 2021, at 14 sites in France. We found that CSFB preferred woodland edges and did not aestivate in flower strips. We found a negative effect of percentage woodland cover only for the smallest scale studied (250 m radius). We also found positive effects of the percentage of litter and mean tree circumference on the number of aestivating CSFB in woodland edges. CONCLUSION: The aestivation of CSFB is supported by woodland edges, but not by flower strips. This implies that the presence of flower strips near oilseed rape fields does not exacerbate the problems due to this pest. However, the crops in the vicinity of woodlands could be colonized earlier by this pest than more distant fields. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.

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Land use changes associated with habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation exert profoundly detrimental impacts on biodiversity conservation. Urban development is one of the prevailing anthropogenic disturbances to wildlife habitat, because these developments are often considered permanent and irreversible. As a result, the potential benefits of built-up land relocation for biodiversity conservation have remained largely unexplored in environmental management practices. Here, we analyze recent built-up land relocation in Shanghai and explore how such restoration programs can affect future land change trajectories with regards to biodiversity conservation. Results show that 187.78 km2 built-up land in Shanghai was restored to natural habitat between 2017 and 2020. Further simulation analysis highlights that relocating built-up land can substantially promote conserve biodiversity. In particular, there would be less habitat loss, better natural habitat quality and more species habitat-suitable range under the scenarios with built-up land relocation. Species extinction assessment suggest that amphibians, mammals, and reptiles will all have an increasingly high extinction risk without built-up land relocation. However, there will even be a marginal decrease in extinction risk over time for mammals and reptiles if the relocation of built-up land is permitted, but still a moderate increase in extinction risk for amphibians. This study highlights the importance of incorporating rigorous conservation planning prior to development activities, thereby underpinning a sustainable approach to environmental management.

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Aerial imagery and video recordings of animals are used for many areas of research such as animal behaviour, behavioural neuroscience and field biology. Many automated methods are being developed to extract data from such high-resolution videos. Most of the available tools are developed for videos taken under idealised laboratory conditions. Therefore, the task of animal detection and tracking for videos taken in natural settings remains challenging due to heterogeneous environments. Methods that are useful for field conditions are often difficult to implement and thus remain inaccessible to empirical researchers. To address this gap, we present an open-source package called Multi-Object Tracking in Heterogeneous environments (MOTHe), a Python-based application that uses a basic convolutional neural network for object detection. MOTHe offers a graphical interface to automate the various steps related to animal tracking such as training data generation, animal detection in complex backgrounds and visually tracking animals in the videos. Users can also generate training data and train a new model which can be used for object detection tasks for a completely new dataset. MOTHe doesn't require any sophisticated infrastructure and can be run on basic desktop computing units. We demonstrate MOTHe on six video clips in varying background conditions. These videos are from two species in their natural habitat-wasp colonies on their nests (up to 12 individuals per colony) and antelope herds in four different habitats (up to 156 individuals in a herd). Using MOTHe, we are able to detect and track individuals in all these videos. MOTHe is available as an open-source GitHub repository with a detailed user guide and demonstrations at: https://github.com/tee-lab/MOTHe-GUI.

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Winter propagation of black swans Cygnus atratus is introduced at Kwangpho on the east coast of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea located in the temperate zone of northeast Asia. The natural lake Kwangpho was selected as a rearing site to provide the environment which matched most closely to black swan's natural habitats. Comparison of the climate data of Kwangpho with Australia and New Zealand led to the conclusion that it is necessary to increase winter temperature 10 °C for artificial rearing. In order to overcome the low temperature with renewable energy, a passive solar greenhouse with a water pond was introduced, where black swans were reared simultaneously while observing the microclimate such as air temperature, humidity and water temperature in winter. When the pond depth was 0.4 m and 0.8 m, there was no significant difference in indoor temperature, the depth fixed at 0.4 m to reduce pumping power by more than 50%. During the study, 80 mature black swans wintered safely and 13 pairs of them laid 74 eggs, the artificial hatching rate was 65% and the natural hatching rate was 53%. It was confirmed that the passive solar greenhouse with a pond can raise the winter minimum temperature 8-10 °C higher than outside, and in this microclimate it is possible to propagate the black swan and it is believed that the greenhouse has abundant potential to enable the artificial breeding as well as wintering of black swans, in temperate zone occupying wide area of the earth.

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The negative impacts of industrial farming on honey bee health have been widely recognized regarding pesticide use and natural foraging habitat loss. An assessment of suitability of urban farms regarding honey bee health is necessary for sustainable development of agriculture and apiculture in urban settings. Urban farms that adopt organic farming practices with restrictions on synthetic pesticide use and conservation of natural habitat can potentially create an environment to mitigate these environmental stressors on honey bees. In this experiment, bee-collected pollen was taken from honey bee colonies that were located on five organically managed urban farms located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to evaluate pesticide exposure and forage use. We also explored the influence of hive equipment on honey bee health in a high desert climate. We found that honey bees on organic urban farms were not stressed by pesticides with limited pesticide types detected (2 out of 187), low residue levels (< 20 µg/kg) and low toxicity (either no, or low toxicity with LD50 at 1,450,300 µg/kg). Honey bees had access to diverse forage resources based on pollen barcoding data. When comparing hive equipment between 10-frame, 8-frame Langstroth and top bar hives, it was determined that 8-frame hives could significantly enhance honey bee health including colony survival and weight growth, comb construction and brood production. Our results suggest that organic urban farms are appropriate locations for securing honey bee health and food safety in a desert climate; while, the selection of hive equipment should be considered when mitigating environmental stress to colonies.

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We explored the virome of the "Phytophthora palustris complex", a group of aquatic specialists geographically limited to Southeast and East Asia, the native origin of many destructive invasive forest Phytophthora spp. Based on high-throughput sequencing (RNAseq) of 112 isolates of "P. palustris" collected from rivers, mangroves, and ponds, and natural forests in subtropical and tropical areas in Indonesia, Taiwan, and Japan, 52 putative viruses were identified, which, to varying degrees, were phylogenetically related to the families Botybirnaviridae, Narnaviridae, Tombusviridae, and Totiviridae, and the order Bunyavirales. The prevalence of all viruses in their hosts was investigated and confirmed by RT-PCR. The rich virus composition, high abundance, and distribution discovered in our study indicate that viruses are naturally infecting taxa from the "P. palustris complex" in their natural niche, and that they are predominant members of the host cellular environment. Certain Indonesian localities are the viruses' hotspots and particular "P. palustris" isolates show complex multiviral infections. This study defines the first bi-segmented bunya-like virus together with the first tombus-like and botybirna-like viruses in the genus Phytophthora and provides insights into the spread and evolution of RNA viruses in the natural populations of an oomycete species.

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An increasing number of laboratories utilize zebrafish as this species is now represented in practically every subfield of biology research. Environmental enrichment has been shown to improve welfare and health of a large number of species of animals studied in laboratories, kept in zoos, or used in agriculture. However, most laboratories keep zebrafish in barren tanks. Artificial and live aquatic plants have been used in a variety of contexts for aquarium fish, and they have also been suggested as a potential enrichment strategy for the zebrafish. However, no systematic studies have been conducted to investigate their beneficial effects in zebrafish husbandry and biology research. In this study, we review some of the potential benefits of using live plants, and argue that systematic analyses for proper choice and use of live plants in zebrafish husbandry are sorely needed. We provide a few examples of aquatic plant species out of the large variety produced for the aquarium hobby that could be adopted to the zebrafish laboratory setting as environmental enrichment. We speculate that once systematic analyses have been conducted, they will show benefits of this ethologically/ecologically relevant enrichment method, one of which will be healthier and less stressed fish leading to increased reproducibility of results in zebrafish research.

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The interface between wetlands and uplands is characterized by gradients in hydrological, soil and biological components. Consequently, the exact spatial distribution of this transitional area is not well known because it often occurs as a fuzzy moisture gradient. However, ecological assessment and conservation require mapping and characterizing this interface to better understand and model biotic and abiotic interactions between wetlands and uplands. To this end, in 2021 and 2022, we observed soil properties and vegetation types along soil moisture gradients throughout the Atlantic, Continental, Mediterranean and Alpine biogeographic regions of France. The dataset contains 2 236 georeferenced plots (accuracy ± 5 m) distributed along 1 088 transects placed along the slope at 377 sites. Each plot in the database is characterized by 21 fields that describe the vegetation habitat type based on the European Nature Information System (EUNIS) and soil properties (i.e. depth of appearance and thickness of redoximorphic features in the soil profile, moisture). These data are useful for researchers and engineers in a variety of disciplines (e.g. Earth and life sciences) to calibrate and validate models to predict the spatial distribution of habitats or to analyze flows.

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Among others, the global change involves a worldwide increase in cropland area, with the concomitant rise in nitrogenous fertilizer supplementation and species range alterations, including parasites and pathogens. As most animals rely on their immune systems against these infectious agents, studying the potential effects of nitrogenous compounds on animal immune response is vital to understand their susceptibility to infections under these altered circumstances. Being subjected to an alarming process of global declines, amphibians are the object of particular attention, given their sensitivity to these compounds, especially to ammonium. Moreover, whereas adults can actively avoid polluted patches, larvae are confined within their waterbodies, thus exposed to contaminants in it. In this work, we test whether chronic exposure to a sublethal dose of ammonium during the larval stage of Pelophylax perezi frogs, released from all contamination after metamorphosis, leads to impaired inflammatory response to phytohemagglutinin in adults. We also test whether such a response differs between agrosystem individuals as compared with conspecifics from natural habitats. We found negative carryover effects of chronic exposure of larvae to ammonium on adult inflammatory response, which could imply a greater susceptibility to pathogens and parasites. However, this damage is only true for males, which, according to the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis, could be a consequence of a testosterone-triggered impairment of male immune function. In disagreement with our prediction, however, we detected no differences in the inflammatory response of agrosystem frogs to phytohemagglutinin as compared with natural habitat conspecifics.

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Artificial reefs have been widely deployed in the northern Yellow Sea. However, the differences in the ecological benefits on different types of artificial reef habitats are still poorly understood. In this study, the temporal and spatial differences on benthic fish communities were evaluated among concrete artificial reef habitat (CAR), rocky artificial reef habitat (RAR), ship artificial reef habitat (SAR) around Xiaoshi Island in northern Yellow Sea. The results indicated that all three types of artificial reef habitats can enhance the diversity variables of benthic fish communities, and fish abundance, species richness and Shannon-Wiener index of CAR were generally better than the other two. CAR and RAR hosted similar community composition of benthic fish, and all types of habitats showed significant differences in community composition between winter-spring and summer-autumn. Environmental factors, especially water temperature, can also affect the community composition by affecting the migration of temperature-preferred species. Overall, the enhancement effects of artificial habitats on fisheries productivity varied with fish species and reef types. This study will help to understand the ecological effects of different types of artificial reefs in northern Yellow Sea, and then could give an insight for scientific construction of artificial reefs in this region.

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Wild populations of the model organism C. elegans represent a valuable resource, allowing for genetic characterization underlying natural phenotypic variation. Here we provide a simple protocol on how to sample and rapidly identify C. elegans wild isolates. We outline how to find suitable habitats and organic substrates, followed by describing isolation and identification of C. elegans live cultures based on easily recognizable morphological characteristics, molecular barcodes, and mating tests. This protocol uses standard laboratory equipment and requires little prior knowledge of C. elegans biology.

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Intensive agriculture has profoundly altered biodiversity and trophic relationships in agricultural landscapes, leading to the deterioration of many ecosystem services such as pollination or biological control. Information on which spatio-temporal factors are simultaneously affecting crop pests and their natural enemies is required to improve conservation biological control practices. We conducted a study in 80 winter wheat crop fields distributed in three regions of North-western Europe (Brittany, Hauts-de-France and Wallonia), along intra-regional gradients of landscape complexity. Five taxa of major crop pests (aphids and slugs) and natural enemies (spiders, carabids, and parasitoids) were sampled three times a year, for two consecutive years. We analysed the influence of regional (meteorology), landscape (structure in both the years n and n-1) and local factors (hedge or grass strip field boundaries, and distance to boundary) on the abundance and species richness of crop-dwelling organisms, as proxies of the service/disservice they provide. Firstly, there was higher biocontrol potential in areas with mild winter climatic conditions. Secondly, natural enemy communities were less diverse and had lower abundances in landscapes with high crop and wooded continuities (sum of interconnected crop or wood surfaces), contrary to slugs and aphids. Finally, field boundaries with grass strips were more favourable to spiders and carabids than boundaries formed by hedges, while the opposite was found for crop pests, with the latter being less abundant towards the centre of the fields. We also revealed temporal modulation-and sometimes reversion-of the impact of local elements on crop biodiversity. To some extent, these results cause controversy because they show that hedgerows and woodlots should not be the unique cornerstones of agro-ecological landscape design strategies. We point out that combining woody and grassy habitats to take full advantage of the features and ecosystem services they both provide (biological pest control, windbreak effect, soil stabilization) may promote sustainable agricultural ecosystems. It may be possible to both reduce pest pressure and promote natural enemies by accounting for taxa-specific antagonistic responses to multi-scale environmental characteristics.

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A comparative study on forests and grasslands in three ecoregions (Humid Chaco, Espinal, and Paranaense) was conducted in two protected areas in northeastern Argentina: Iberá National Park and Mburucuyá National Park. The effects of habitat heterogeneity (vegetation cover) on terrestrial ant (Formicidae) assemblages were analyzed and compared. The habitat heterogeneity hypothesis-which predicts that when environmental structural complexity increases, the species richness will also increase-was tested. Two sites were selected in each ecoregion. A forest and a grassland were surveyed in each site, using unbaited pitfall traps from October 2013 to February 2014. Overall, 5,465 ants belonging to 37 species were collected, 32 of which were present in forests and 26 in grasslands. Solenopsis invicta Buren (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and Pheidole radoszkowskii Mayr (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) were the most abundant species. Formicidae assemblages were compared in terms of abundance, species richness, and diversity between habitats and ecoregions. The results of this study support the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis, since we found a higher diversity of ants in more structured habitats (i.e., forest) in the three ecoregions analyzed. Also, the ant assemblages differed both between habitats and between ecoregions. Our findings provide the first assessment of terrestrial ant assemblages in natural habitats of the three ecoregions in Corrientes Province, Argentina.

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CONTEXT: Predatory insects contribute to the natural control of agricultural pests, but also use plant pollen or nectar as supplementary food resources. Resource maps have been proposed as an alternative to land cover maps for prediction of beneficial insects. OBJECTIVES: We aimed at predicting the abundance of crop pest predating insects and the pest control service they provide with both, detailed flower resource maps and land cover maps. METHODS: We selected 19 landscapes of 500 m radius and mapped them with both approaches. In the centres of the landscapes, aphid predators - hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae), ladybeetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and lacewings (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) - were surveyed in experimentally established faba bean phytometers (Vicia faba L. Var. Sutton Dwarf) and their control of introduced black bean aphids (Aphis fabae Scop.) was recorded. RESULTS: Landscapes with higher proportions of forest edge as derived from land cover maps supported higher abundance of aphid predators, and high densities of aphid predators reduced aphid infestation on faba bean. Floral resource maps did not significantly predict predator abundance or aphid control services. CONCLUSIONS: Land cover maps allowed to relate landscape composition with predator abundance, showing positive effects of forest edges. Floral resource maps may have failed to better predict predators because other resources such as overwintering sites or alternative prey potentially play a more important role than floral resources. More research is needed to further improve our understanding of resource requirements beyond floral resource estimations and our understanding of their role for aphid predators at the landscape scale. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-021-01361-0.

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Bumblebees are key pollinators in agricultural landscapes. However, little is known about how gut microbial communities respond to anthropogenic changes. We used commercially produced colonies of buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) placed in three habitats. Whole guts (midgut, hindgut, and rectum) of B. terrestris specimens were dissected from the body and analyzed using 16S phylogenetic community analysis. We observed significantly different bacterial community composition between the agricultural landscapes (apple orchards and oilseed rape (Brassica napus) fields) and forest meadows, whereas differences in gut communities between the orchards and oilseed rape fields were nonsignificant. Bee-specific bacterial genera such as Lactobacillus, Snodgrassella, and Gilliamella dominated gut communities of B. terrestris specimens. In contrast, the guts of B. terrestris from forest meadows were dominated by fructose-associated Fructobacillus spp. Bacterial communities of workers were the most diverse. At the same time, those of males and young queens were less diverse, possibly reflecting greater exposure to the colony's inner environment compared to the environment outside the colony, as well as bumblebee age. Our results suggest that habitat quality, exposure to environmental microbes, nectar quality and accessibility, and land use significantly affect gut bacterial composition in B. terrestris.

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Hedgerows are among the most stable refugia for biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, providing food and shelter to many living organisms. However, the destruction and alteration of hedgerow ground vegetation compromise their potential for biodiversity conservation. The purpose of this study was to find local and landscape-scale drivers that promote plant diversity in hedgerows and prevent their colonization by troublesome weeds. Using a functional approach, we assessed the effects of hedgerow features, adjacent farming systems (conventional vs organic) and landscape context (bocage, semi-natural habitat cover, organic farming cover) on the diversity and composition of plant communities in 40 hedgerows, in Brittany (France). Hedgerow features had no effect on species diversity, but influenced functional diversity measured as a standardized effect size (SES), i.e. independent of species diversity. Organic farming at local scale was the main driver increasing both species and functional diversity (SES), doubling the cover of insect-pollinated forbs. High organic farming cover in the landscape increased species diversity, but not functional diversity (SES), of hedgerows adjoining conventional farming systems. Besides, high cover of semi-natural habitats and organic farming in the landscape prevented colonization of hedgerows by troublesome weeds. Promoting extensive management at both local and landscape scale is thus necessary for successful restoration of hedgerow ground vegetation, which should favour biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision.

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