Role of Landscape Design in Mitigating

Agricultural Intensification

Douglas A. Landis

Department of Entomology &

Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center

Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI USA

Impacts of agricultural intensification

Knowledge needed for effective landscape design

Examples of design processes

Outline

Agricultural Landscapes

Tscharntke et al. Ecology Letters 2005

The Challenge

Human population, food & energy

demands

Cropland & pasture/grazing occupies

38% of the ice-free land surface

Foley et al . 2011 Nature

In many of these areas humans are

already appropriating >50% of NPP

Haberl et al. 2007 PNAS

Cropland

Grazing

Intensification of agriculture has been

linked to declines in…

Biodiversity • Plants (Geiger et al. 2010)

• Arthropods (Hendrickx et al. 2007)

• Birds (Donald et al. 2001)

• Mammals (Sotherton 1998)

Ecosystem Services

• Pollination (Kremen et al. 2002, Garibaldi et al. 2011, Deguines et al 2014)

• Biocontrol (Bianchi et al. 2006, Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2011)

Functional Diversity

• Birds, mammals (Flynn et al. 2009)

Ecosystem Services from Agricultural Landscapes

Restore integrity Increase functionality Sustainably intensify?

Goal:

Supporting

Provisioning

Regulating

Cultural

Knowledge to effectively design

agricultural landscapes

Biodiversity Ecosystem Function

Ecosystem Services

Resilience

Predation, parasitism

Pest regulation, yield increase

Natural enemy community

Sustainability

Knowledge to effectively design

agricultural landscapes

Within Crop

Field Margin

Landscape

Regional

9

28

17

3

4

14

7

0

1

3

1

0

None

n=60 studies from 2013-14

Biodiversity Ecosystem Function

Ecosystem Services

Resilience

Predation, parasitism

Pest regulation, yield increase

Natural enemy community

Sustainability

Recent Meta-analyses

Insects and agricultural landscape structure

5 meta-analyses Bianchi et al. 2006

Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2011

Veres et al. 2013

Shackelford et al. 2013

Martinson & Fagan 2014

no data

↓herbivory

↔ plant damage

(but tends to be ↓)

Trends in Meta-analyses

Biodiversity, Community Structure

Ecosystem Function

Ecosystem Services

Resilience, Sustainability

↑predation/parasitism

↓pest population growth

↑landscape complexity (non-crop habitat)

↑ natural enemies abundance, diversity

↓↔ pest abundance, ↑ pest diversity

Bianchi et al. 2006

Chaplin-Kramer et al. 2011

Veres et al. 2013

Shackelford et al. 2013

Martinson & Fagan 2014 T. Rand paper #1587 Tuesday

Additional Trends

Both local and landscape scales are important

Common scale of response for natural enemies

700-2000m

Implies that in most landscapes, some level of

cooperative action by stakeholders will be necessary

to effect change

Current Status of Agricultural

Landscape Design

Landscape ecologists call for a “design focus” Nassauer and Opdam 2008

Opdam et al. 2013

Processes are transdisciplinary and involve multiple

stakeholders

Often driven by broader issues

Landscape preservation, water quality

Insect biodiversity is not the focus but can be accommodated

Hoeksche Waard, The Netherlands

Steingröver et al. 2010

Agriculture and tourism

Water quality, bird habitat

Threatened by development

Examples of Landscape Design

Engaged multi-stakeholder group

“Robust and fine elements”

“Green-blue network”

Hoeksche Waard cont.

Steingröver et al. 2010

Examples cont.

Midwest Bioenergy Landscapes

Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota

Landscape-Scale Learning Laboratories “LandLabs”

Jordan et al. 2013

Research on sustainability of bioenergy crop choices

Develop decision support tools Smartscape http://dss.wei.wisc.edu

Pilot stakeholder engagement

Common threads in re-design

projects

External driving factors

Social, policy, environmental

Use of “boundary objects”

Land use maps, scenarios

Decision support tools

Games

Contributions of multiple disciplines e.g.

Evaluation of “agglomeration bonus”: Economics

Performance of social networks: Sociology

Conclusions

Re-design of agricultural landscapes is needed to

mitigate negative impacts of intensification on

arthropod-mediated ecosystem services

Collectively, we already know a lot

But need additional studies at longer temporal and greater

spatial scales

Achieving landscape redesign will require engaging

with multiple stakeholders

GLBRC Biodiversity Team

Birds

Doug Schemske MSU

Bruce Robertson MSU

Patrick Doran TNC

Biocontrol Services

Doug Landis MSU

Mary Gardiner MSU

Ben Werling MSU

Claudio Gratton UW

Tim Meehan UW

Hannah Gaines UW

Acknowledgements

Pollination Services

Rufus Isaacs MSU

Julianna Wilson MSU

Plant Biodiversity

Kay Gross MSU

Carol Baker MSU

Pam Mosley MSU

Microbial Biodiversity

Thomas Schmidt MSU

Tracy Teal MSU

USDA RAMP Collaborators

Claudio Gratton UW

Matt O’Neal ISU

George Heimpel UMN

Chris DiFonzo MSU

Nick Schmidt ISU

Emily MuellerUW

Jeremy Chacon UMN

Kevin Johnson ISU

Alejandro Costamagna UMN

David Ragsdale UMN

http://www.landislab.ent.msu.edu

Native Plants & Ecosystem Services Collaborators

Rufus Isaacs, MSU, Joy Landis, MSU-IPM Program

Julie Doll, KBS LTER

Rebecca Finneran, Nicky Rothwell, Terry McLean, Hannah Stevens,

Ron Goldy MSU Extension

ResearchGate: Doug Landis