The recent growth in bioenergy crop cultivation, stimulated by the need to implement measures to reduce net CO2 emissions, is driving major land-use changes with consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem service provision. While the type of bioenergy crop and its associated management is likely to affect biodiversity at the local (field) scale, landscape context and its interaction with crop type, may also influence biodiversity on farms. In this study, we assessed the impact of replacing conventional agricultural crops with two model bioenergy crops (either oilseed rape Brassica napus or Miscanthus x giganteus) on vascular plant, bumblebee, solitary bee, hoverfly and carabid beetle richness, diversity and abundance in 50 sites in Ireland. We assessed whether within-field biodiversity was also related to surrounding landscape structure. We found that local- and landscape-scale variables correlated with biodiversity in these agricultural landscapes. Overall, the differences between the bioenergy crops compared with the conventional crops on farmland biodiversity were mostly positive (e.g. higher vascular plant richness in Miscanthus planted on former conventional tillage, higher solitary bee abundance and richness in Miscanthus and oilseed rape compared to conventional crops) or neutral (e.g. no differences between crop types for hoverflies and bumblebees). We showed that these crop type effects were independent of (i.e. no interactions with) the surrounding landscape composition and configuration. However, surrounding landscape context did relate to biodiversity in these farms, negatively for carabid beetles and positively for hoverflies. While we conclude that the bioenergy crops compared favourably with conventional crops in terms of biodiversity of the taxa studied at the field scale, the effects of large-scale planting in these landscapes could result in very different impacts. Maintaining ecosystem functioning and the delivery of ecosystem services will require a greater understanding of impacts at the landscape-scale to ensure the sustainable development of climate change mitigation measures.

The data uploaded from this project has contributed to the following peer reviewed published paper:

Bourke D, Stanley DA, O Rourke E, Thompson R, Carnus T, Dauber J, Emmerson M, Whelan P, Hecq F, Flynn E, Dolan L, & Stout J. (2013) Response of farmland biodiversity to the introduction of bioenergy crops: effects of local-factors and surrounding landscape context. Global Change Biology Bioenergy. doi: 10.1111/gcbb.12089

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SAFER-Data Display URL	https://eparesearch.epa.ie/safer/iso19115/display?isoID=3033
Resource Keywords	biodiversity, bioenergy crops, climate change mitigation measures, landscape composition, landscape configuration, semi-natural habitats
EPA/ERTDI/STRIVE Project Code	2007-B-CD-1-S1
EPA/ERTDI/STRIVE Project Theme	Biodiversity
Resource Availability:	Semi-Private
Limitations on the use of this Resource	Time restrictions based on publishing peer reviewed articles from this research are requested. Please contact Dr David Bourke for more details bourkedo@tcd.ie
Number of Attached Files (Publicly and Openly Available for Download):	0
Project Start Date	Tuesday 1st April 2008 (01-04-2008)
Earliest Recorded Date within any attached datasets or digital objects	Monday 1st September 2008 (01-09-2008)
Most Recent Recorded Date within any attached datasets or digital objects	Sunday 30th June 2013 (30-06-2013)
Published on SAFER	Thursday 24th October 2013 (24-10-2013)
Date of Last Edit	Thursday 24th October 2013 at 22:23:50 (24-10-2013)
Datasets or Files Updated On	Thursday 24th October 2013 at 22:18:29 (24-10-2013)

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Description of Geographical Characteristics of This Project or Dataset
This study was conducted in agriculturally dominated landscapes in south-east Ireland, where tillage crops are interspersed with grassland-based beef and dairy farming. Typical of Irish rural landscapes, most fields were relatively small (mean of 2.8 ha) and surrounded by hedgerows. Fifty fields were selected comprising 10 replicates of five crop types geographically interspersed throughout the study area. These crop types were oilseed rape; Miscanthus planted on former tillage; Miscanthus planted on former grassland; winter wheat (control tillage); and grasslands (control grassland).

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