Monitoring farmland biodiversity in European agricultural landscapes

Abstract: Agricultural intensification is cited as the main contributing factor to declines in
farmland biodiversity. While many countries have implemented agri-environment schemes and adopted biodiversity-friendly measures on EU and UK farmland to counteract these declines, monitoring efforts of these schemes are often inconsistent, limited to the farm-level, and focused only on scheme-specific target taxa. Therefore, there is a requirement to monitor overall farmland biodiversity in a more consistent manner, at the landscape-scale, to determine if conservation efforts are aiding in biodiversity recovery. Through the FRAMEwork project, a novel biodiversity monitoring protocol was assembled. Relevant landscape-scale biodiversity indicators were identified, and the monitoring protocols are presented as a comprehensive guide, from selecting appropriate survey squares and transect placement for different farming systems and European landscapes, to providing guidance on how to conduct biodiversity surveys of birds, pollinators (bumblebees, butterflies, solitary bees, and hoverflies), and vegetation within these survey squares.