Open AccessBioenergy production and S kylark ( A lauda arvensis ) population abundance – a modelling approach for the analysis of land‐use change impacts and conservation options
Author(s) -
Engel Jan,
Huth Andreas,
Frank Karin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
gcb bioenergy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.378
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1757-1707
pISSN - 1757-1693
DOI - 10.1111/j.1757-1707.2012.01170.x
Subject(s) - arable land , bioenergy , energy crop , population , land use , agroforestry , land use, land use change and forestry , biomass (ecology) , biodiversity , environmental science , abundance (ecology) , crop , geography , ecology , agriculture , biology , biofuel , forestry , demography , sociology
Bioenergy production is seen as one way of meeting future energy needs. The growing demand for biomass for energy production induces the cultivation of a few fast growing and high‐yielding energy crops on vast areas of arable land. This land‐use change has been found associated with the reduction of habitat suitability for farmland birds and a decline in farmland biodiversity in general. A large number of studies have assessed the ecological effects of energy crop cultivation at the local scale of a single field. This study focuses on regional landscape changes caused by increased energy crop cultivation, which includes reduction of crop‐type richness and spatial concentration of single crop‐types. We present a spatially explicit ecological model to assess the population‐level consequences of these effects on the abundance of the farmland bird species S kylark ( A lauda arvensis ). We also investigate the impacts of different land‐use scenarios and aim to identify adaptive conservation options. We show that (1) the impacts of increased energy crop cultivation on S kylark population abundance depend strongly on the landscape structure; (2) impacts could be tolerated as long as a certain minimum level of crop‐type heterogeneity is retained at the landscape level and (3) conservation actions are required and effective especially on landscapes where crop‐field size is large.