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A moderate differential effect of organic and conventional agriculture across taxonomic groups inhabiting farmland ponds
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1. Organic agriculture is increasingly promoted as a more environmentally friendly alternative to conventional agriculture, as it restricts the use of fertilisers and synthetic pesticides. However, the impact of both farming systems on aquatic biodiversity is strongly debated. Ponds are abundant in agricultural landscapes and strongly contribute to biodiversity. They also respond strongly to land use on a very local scale. The present study assessed the effects of conventional and organic agriculture on the taxonomic diversity of multiple groups of aquatic organisms at local and regional spatial scales. 2. We conducted a broad scale field survey to quantify the differential impact of conventional and organic agriculture on local environmental conditions in ponds, on community composition and on local, among site and regional diversity of macrophytes, cladoceran zooplankton and selected macroinvertebrates in Belgian farmland ponds (Flanders). 3. We observed that organic agriculture was moderately positively associated with higher local species richness for shoreline vegetation, but not for other organism groups. Only minor differences were observed for among-pond variation, and these were mostly related to rare species of cladocerans and heteropterans. At the regional scale, ponds in organic showed higher species richness than in conventional farmland for shoreline vegetation, emergent vegetation, and cladoceran zooplankton, but lower for coleopterans and gastropods. There was no significant effect of agricultural type on water quality. 4. We conclude that organic farming is associated with moderate positive effects on pond biodiversity and regional species richness of plants and zooplankton. We observed no systematic differences between the two types of agriculture in local environmental conditions in ponds. The absence of large differences in biodiversity and water quality between ponds located in organic and conventional farmland might be related to the dominance of intensive conventional farming in our study region and the history of conventional farming around ponds that are now surrounded by organic farming. Future studies should include other factors such as the structure of the landscape and the role of natural elements such as buffer strips surrounding the ponds.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023
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A molecular diagnostic for identifying central African forest artiodactyls from faecal pellets
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RBINS Staff Publications
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A molecular phylogenetic framework for the Ergalataxinae (Neogastropoda: Muricidae)
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RBINS Staff Publications
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A monodontid cetacean from the Early Pliocene of the North Sea
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RBINS Publications
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Bulletin of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences - Earth Sciences.
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Bulletin of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences - Earth Sciences
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A multi-proxy record of the Latest Danian Event at Gebel Qreiya, Eastern Desert, Egypt.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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A multidisciplinary analysis of cesspits from late medieval and post-medieval Brussels, Belgium: diet and health in the fourteenth-seventeenth century
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The fill of two late and post-medieval cesspits in Brussels was analyzed using a multidisciplinary approach, including the study of macrobotanical and faunal remains, pollen, and parasite eggs. These show that in the diet plant foods were dominated by cereals while the animal remains document the consumption of mainly fish and birds. The presence of foods that were luxuries at that time would indicate that these were affluent households, although with an admixture of meals related to those of lower socioeconomic status. Seven species of helminth and protozoal parasites were identified, with dominance of those species spread by poor sanitation.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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A natural death assemblage of fishes from an early modern archeological context in Antwerp (Belgium)
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Abstract An unusual concentration of tens of thousands small fish remains discovered during rescue excavations in the town of Antwerp, Belgium, is described. The material was found in a small depression with no associated archeological material but could be dated to the first half of the 16th century based on its stratigraphic position. About 3500 freshwater fish were found in articulating position and it is shown that they died naturally during a single depositional event after an exceptional flood. The species spectrum and the reconstructed fish lengths make it possible to document the season when the catastrophic mortality occurred. This assemblage differs from the few assemblages of natural mortality reported in the literature, which are all of the attritional type.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023
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A new adappoid primate from the Early Eocene of India
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A new genus and species of primitive adapoid primate, Asiadapis cambayensis, is described based on a dentary from the lower Eocene Cambay Shale exposed in the Vastan lignite mine in Gujarat, western India. Asiadapis is most similar to European cercamoniine notharctids and to Marcgodinotius, another primitive cercamoniine from Vastan mine. Asiadapis and Marcgodinotius may belong to a primitive clade of notharctids that reached India around the beginning of the Eocene.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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A new Aegosomatini from Borneo: Aegosoma musaamani n.sp. (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Prioninae)
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RBINS Staff Publications
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A new Amphidromus (Gastropoda: Camaenidae) from Vietnam
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RBINS collections by external author(s)
