Parameter harmonisation for calculating landscape configuration effects on weed communities

Abstract: Within the Network of Excellence ENDURE (European Network for DurableExploitation of Crop Protection Strategies) a group of weed scientists have explored thepossibility of re-analysing existing weed community databases for possible surrounding landscapeconfiguration effects. Existing databases were characterised and the weed measurement andlandscape metrics important for such analyses were selected. In the next phase all partners testedrelevant hypotheses on their database, following agreed guidelines. Results from these casestudies confirmed the importance of incorporating ecological and biological characteristics of theweed flora. They also confirmed the need to define landscape metrics which express landscapemosaic structure and land-use diversity at relatively small scales, ranging from directly-adjacentto the field (i.e. margin types) up to landscape metrics about 200m from the field. This work isintended to stimulate other weed scientists to repeat this exercise on their own databases in orderto continue the discussion on parameter definition for testing of landscape effects on weedcommunities.