ArticleThe Journal of applied ecology2014
Land-use intensity and the effects of organic farming on biodiversity: a hierarchical meta-analysis.
Article in The Journal of applied ecology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 90 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
90 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Complex agricultural landscapes host more biodiversity than simple ones: A global meta-analysis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Pooled it
- A systematic review of the definitions and interpretations in scientific literature of 'less but better' meat in high-income settings.Nature food · 2022Pooled it
- Wetland plant species improve performance when inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: a meta-analysis of experimental pot studies.Mycorrhiza · 2018Pooled it
- Phylogeny, biogeography and methodology: a meta-analytic perspective on heterogeneity in adult marine turtle survival rates.Scientific reports · 2018Pooled it
- The role of agri-environment schemes in conservation and environmental management.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2015Pooled it
- Diversification practices reduce organic to conventional yield gap.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2015Pooled it
- Effects of Habitat Types on Pollinators and Seasonal Variations in Plant-Insect Pollination Networks in Nanchong, China.Insects · 2026Article
- Enhanced soil health and greenhouse gas mitigation potential are linked to microbial network restructuring under long-term organic farming.Fundamental research · 2026Article
- Contrasting effects of rice-crayfish co-culture on insect herbivores at field and landscape scales.Pest management science · 2026Article
- Global land-use change rivals climate change in driving projected diversity shifts of terrestrial vertebrates.iScience · 2026Article
- Fish Assemblages Distinguish Eco-Friendly from Conventional Rice Paddies Through Abundance and Biomass Rather than Diversity.Biology · 2026Article
- Assessing Biodiversity in Agricultural Landscapes Through Drone-Based Environmental DNA Sampling.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Genome-wide association studies of nutritional traits in peas (Pisum sativum L.) for biofortification.The plant genome · 2025Article
- Combined application of biochar-compost and cow urine enhances organic rice production.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Two decades long-term field trial data on fertilization, tillage, and crop rotation focusing on soil microbes.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Article
- Microbial inoculants modulate the rhizosphere microbiome, alleviate plant stress responses, and enhance maize growth at field scale.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Microbial Inoculant GB03 Increased the Yield and Quality of Grape Fruit Under Salt-Alkali Stress by Changing Rhizosphere Microbial Communities.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Tillage type and sentinel insect species affect the relative prevalence of the entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium robertsii, in soil.PloS one · 2025Article
- Effect of tillage system on epigeal and foliar insect predation in an organic cropping system in Pennsylvania, USA.PloS one · 2025Article
30 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The benefits of organic farming to biodiversity in agricultural landscapes continue to be hotly debated, emphasizing the importance of precisely quantifying the effect of organic vs. conventional farming. We conducted an updated hierarchical meta-analysis of studies that compared biodiversity under organic and conventional farming methods, measured as species richness. We calculated effect sizes for 184 observations garnered from 94 studies, and for each study, we obtained three standardized measures reflecting land-use intensity. We investigated the stability of effect sizes through time, publication bias due to the 'file drawer' problem, and consider whether the current literature is representative of global organic farming patterns. On average, organic farming increased species richness by about 30%. This result has been robust over the last 30 years of published studies and shows no sign of diminishing. Organic farming had a greater effect on biodiversity as the percentage of the landscape consisting of arable fields increased, that is, it is higher in intensively farmed regions. The average effect size and the response to agricultural intensification depend on taxonomic group, functional group and crop type. There is some evidence for publication bias in the literature; however, our results are robust to its impact. Current studies are heavily biased towards northern and western Europe and North America, while other regions with large areas of organic farming remain poorly investigated.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.