Bishop, G.A., Kleijn, D., Albrecht, M. et al. (84 more authors) (2025) Critical habitat thresholds for effective pollinator conservation in agricultural landscapes. Science, 389 (6767). pp. 1314-1319. ISSN: 0036-8075
Abstract
Biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes is declining, but evidence-based conservation targets to guide international policies for such landscapes are lacking. We present a framework for informing habitat conservation policies based on the enhancement of habitat quantity and quality and define thresholds of habitat quantity at which it becomes effective to also prioritize habitat quality. We applied this framework to insect pollinators, an important part of agroecosystem biodiversity, by synthesizing 59 studies from 19 countries. Given low habitat quality, hoverflies had the lowest threshold at 6% semi-natural habitat cover, followed by solitary bees (16%), bumble bees (18%), and butterflies (37%). These figures represent minimum habitat thresholds in agricultural landscapes, but when habitat quantity is restricted, marked increases in quality are required to reach similar outcomes.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This is an author produced version of an article published in made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC, RCUK Shared Services Centre Ltd NE/V006916/1 |
Date Deposited: | 14 Aug 2025 10:13 |
Last Modified: | 03 Oct 2025 16:12 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
Identification Number: | 10.1126/science.adr2146 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:230392 |
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