Press release: Biodiversity needs more than just flower strips
No. 143 - 18.09.2025
Researchers call for diversified measures and collaboration across the landscape
Strips of land planted with flowers between fields are the most popular environmental measure in agriculture. They attract pollinators such as butterflies and wild bees, look beautiful and can be achieved quickly. However, the goal of creating and maintaining a structurally diverse and therefore particularly species-rich landscape will not be achieved if flower strips are the only measure taken. Researchers at the University of Göttingen have described how agricultural landscapes need to be designed to accommodate many species and to ensure other social and ecological functions such as providing nature for human recreation and climate protection. The perspective article was published in the journal Biological Conservation.
The expansion of agriculture across the landscape is the main cause of global species decline. To increase biodiversity in such landscapes, habitats that provide additional resources must be separate from cultivated areas. Strips filled with flowers that live for just a growing season are common in the European Union. However, they only support a limited range of plant and animal species.
According to this study, preserving biodiversity requires a variety of measures at the landscape level. Different types of habitats are needed, such as arable land with a variety of crops, together with natural areas for annual and perennial plants on land, as well as in flowing or still water. Reducing the size of arable fields also creates more structures around the edges to provide animals with food, nesting and refuge. Habitats with different structures can complement each other in terms of availability of resources throughout the year, allowing species to move between them. This creates diverse habitat types and communities that are less threatened by extinction and promote important services to the ecosystem, such as crop pollination and biological pest control.
In addition, agricultural and environmental programmes should focus more on working together within farming and with other stakeholders. “We need stronger collaboration between all interested groups to create biodiversity-friendly agricultural landscapes with diverse habitats so that the species richness of our cultivated landscapes can be restored and preserved,” emphasises lead author Professor Teja Tscharntke at Göttingen University’s Functional Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology Group.
Original publication: Teja Tscharntke et al. Beyond flower strips – restoring biodiversity needs more landscape heterogeneity. Biological Conservation (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111474
Contact:
Professor Teja Tscharntke
University of Göttingen
Functional Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology Group
37077 Göttingen, Germany
Tel: +49 (0)551 39-29209
Email: ttschar@gwdg.de
https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/92552.html
Professor Catrin Westphal
University of Göttingen
Functional Agrobiodiversity & Agroecology Group
37077 Göttingen, Germany
Tel: +49 (0)551 39-28275
Email: catrin.westphal@uni-goettingen.de
www.uni-goettingen.de/en/601841.html