How much do we really lose?—Yield losses in the proximity of natural landscape elements in agricultural landscapes

作者：Larissa Raatz, Nina Bacchi, Karin Pirhofer‐Walzl, Michael Glemnitz, Marina E. H. Müller, Jasmin Joshi, Christoph Scherber · 发表于：Ecology and Evolution · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1002/ece3.5370 · 被引用次数：49 · 研究领域：Land Use and Ecosystem Services、Environmental Conservation and Management、Forest Management and Policy

Natural landscape elements (NLEs) in agricultural landscapes contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem services, but are also regarded as an obstacle for large-scale agricultural production. However, the effects of NLEs on crop yield have rarely been measured. Here, we investigated how different bordering structures, such as agricultural roads, field-to-field borders, forests, hedgerows, and kettle holes, influence agricultural yields. We hypothesized that (a) yield values at field borders differ from mid-field yields and that (b) the extent of this change in yields depends on the bordering structure. We measured winter wheat yields along transects with log-scaled distances from the border into the agricultural field within two intensively managed agricultural landscapes in Germany (2014 near Göttingen, and 2015-2017 in the Uckermark). We observed a yield loss adjacent to every investigated bordering structure of 11%-38% in comparison with mid-field yields. However, depending on the bordering structure, this yield loss disappeared at different distances. While the proximity of kettle holes did not affect yields more than neighboring agricultural fields, woody landscape elements had strong effects on winter wheat yields. Notably, 95% of mid-field yields could already be reached at a distance of 11.3 m from a kettle hole and at a distance of 17.8 m from hedgerows as well as forest borders. Our findings suggest that yield losses are especially relevant directly adjacent to woody ...