SynthesisProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
Complex agricultural landscapes host more biodiversity than simple ones: A global meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 243 citations in OpenAlex.
- Geographic, Taxonomic and Metric Gaps in Biodiversity Research Limit Evidence-Based Conservation in Agricultural Landscapes: An Umbrella Review.Ecology letters · 2025Pooled it
- Meta-analysis shows that wild large herbivores shape ecosystem properties and promote spatial heterogeneity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Pooled it
- Agricultural diversification promotes sustainable and resilient global rice production.Nature food · 2023Pooled 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
- Community composition, abundance and activity-density of carabids and staphylinids depend on prey abundance and adjacent habitat even in diverse agricultural landscapes.Pest management science · 2026Article
- Insect pests in Brassica napus crops: toward ecologically optimized integrated pest management.Pest management science · 2026Review
- A global assessment of animal community responses to agricultural management.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- Does higher food biodiversity in the Dutch diet lead to lower environmental impact?European journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- How landscape factors relate to biodiversity-economic performance in an Estonian grassland-rich region.Environmental management · 2026Article
- Rhizosphere Microbiome as an Underexplored Resource for Agroecosystem Sustainability: Insights From the Carrot Root Zone.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Review
- Field size as a determinant of common vole population density.Pest management science · 2026Article
- Out of the forest: the movements and habitat selection of mixed-species bird flocks in agricultural landscapes adjacent to protected areas in Sri Lanka.Movement ecology · 2026Article
- Article
- Landscape complexity and agricultural pressure at the habitat-level scale determine impact of insecticide use on future generation of non-target arthropods (ground beetle Poecilus cupreus).Ecotoxicology (London, England) · 2026Article
- Space-use by feral cattle and horses shapes vegetation structure in a trophic rewilding area.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Pathways to productivity: how functional ecosystem service flow determines crop yield in prairie landscape.Landscape ecology · 2026Article
- A food system transformation pathway reconciles 1.5 °C global warming with improved health, environment and social inclusion.Nature food · 2025Article
- Mapping the potential of Natural Pest Control services in pan-European landscapes at 50 m resolution.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Integrated strategies for enhancing agrifood productivity, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and improving soil health.Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.)) · 2025Review
- The Global Spatial Co-Variation Between Crop Diversity and Landscape Heterogeneity.Global change biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Managing agricultural landscapes to support biodiversity conservation requires profound structural changes worldwide. Often, discussions are centered on management at the field level. However, a wide and growing body of evidence calls for zooming out and targeting agricultural policies, research, and interventions at the landscape level to halt and reverse the decline in biodiversity, increase biodiversity-mediated ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes, and improve the resilience and adaptability of these ecosystems. We conducted the most comprehensive assessment to date on landscape complexity effects on nondomesticated terrestrial biodiversity through a meta-analysis of 1,134 effect sizes from 157 peer-reviewed articles. Increasing landscape complexity through changes in composition, configuration, or heterogeneity significatively and positively affects biodiversity. More complex landscapes host more biodiversity (richness, abundance, and evenness) with potential benefits to sustainable agricultural production and conservation, and effects are likely underestimated. The few articles that assessed the combined contribution of linear (e.g., hedgerows) and areal (e.g., woodlots) elements resulted in a near-doubling of the effect sizes (i.e., biodiversity level) compared to the dominant number of studies measuring these elements separately. Similarly, positive effects on biodiversity are stronger in articles monitoring biodiversity for at least 2 y compared to the dominant 1-y monitoring efforts. Besides, positive and stronger effects exist when monitoring occurs in nonoverlapping landscapes, highlighting the need for long-term and robustly designed monitoring efforts. Living in harmony with nature will require shifting paradigms toward valuing and promoting multifunctional agriculture at the farm and landscape levels with a research agenda that untangles complex agricultural landscapes' contributions to people and nature under current and future conditions.
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Registered trials
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.