TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gevers, Jana
A1  - Hoye, Toke Thomas
A1  - Topping, Chris John
A1  - Glemnitz, Michael
A1  - Schroeder, Boris
T1  - Biodiversity and the mitigation of climate change through bioenergy  impacts of increased maize cultivation on farmland wildlife
JF  - Global change biology : Bioenergy
N2  - The public promotion of renewable energies is expected to increase the number of biogas plants and stimulate energy crops cultivation (e. g. maize) in Germany. In order to assess the indirect effects of the resulting land-use changes on biodiversity, we developed six land-use scenarios and simulated the responses of six farmland wildlife species with the spatially explicit agent-based model system ALMaSS. The scenarios differed in composition and spatial configuration of arable crops. We implemented scenarios where maize for energy production replaced 15% and 30% of the area covered by other cash crops. Biogas maize farms were either randomly distributed or located within small or large aggregation clusters. The animal species investigated were skylark (Alauda arvensis), grey partridge (Perdix perdix), European brown hare (Lepus europaeus), field vole (Microtus agrestis), a linyphiid spider (Erigone atra) and a carabid beetle (Bembidion lampros). The changes in crop composition had a negative effect on the population sizes of skylark, partridge and hare and a positive effect on the population sizes of spider and beetle and no effect on the population size of vole. An aggregated cultivation of maize amplified these effects for skylark. Species responses to changes in the crop composition were consistent across three differently structured landscapes. Our work suggests that with the compliance to some recommendations, negative effects of biogas-related land-use change on the populations of the six representative farmland species can largely be avoided.
KW  - agriculture
KW  - ALMaSS
KW  - biogas
KW  - farmland biodiversity
KW  - land-use change
KW  - maize
KW  - spatially explicit agent-based modeling
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1757-1707.2011.01104.x
SN  - 1757-1693
VL  - 3
IS  - 6
SP  - 472
EP  - 482
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  -