How Do Different Habitats Work Together to Support Biodiversity?

FRAMEwork has released landscape complementation models showing how habitat configuration optimises natural pest control, pollination and other ecosystem services across farmed landscapes

FRAMEwork has published a report exploring how different habitats and resources scattered across farmed landscapes work together to support wildlife. Landscape complementation is based on a simple observation about species ecology: many species cannot find everything they need in a single habitat patch. They require different resources at different times of year or at different life stages. A bird might need grassland for nesting in spring, hedgerows for foraging in summer and shrubland for shelter in winter. Similarly, beneficial insects often depend on diverse habitat types to complete their life cycles.

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Models for Optimal Habitat Configuration

The spatially explicit models use predatory hoverflies and their aphid prey to demonstrate how landscape composition, management and configuration affect natural pest control outcomes. Models show that pest control improves when flower strips and woody habitats increase in size, with increases in woody habitat more beneficial than increases in flower strips alone. Crop fields experience better pest control when smaller and in close proximity to complementary crops. Flower strips positioned adjacent to woody habitats and crops achieve greater effectiveness than distant placement.

Key recommendations emerged: flower strips adjacent to woody habitats are more effective than isolated strips; proximity of complementary crops and habitat features matters more than absolute habitat availability; small-scale configuration such as flower strip placement has larger impact on pest suppression than larger-scale landscape patterns.

Validation Across Diverse European Contexts

The models accommodate regional variations across Mediterranean, continental and Atlantic climates, ensuring applicability across diverse European contexts. Rather than proposing a single ideal landscape that exists nowhere in practice, the models work within real farming systems with genuine economic constraints. The models were systematically validated and adapted by FRAMEwork's Farmer Clusters across Mediterranean, continental and Atlantic regions, ensuring that recommendations reflect genuine diversity of European agricultural landscapes.

From Mediterranean vineyards and olive groves through Northern European cereal monocultures, from lowland arable land to upland grasslands, the models have been tested against real-world conditions and refined accordingly. This collaboration between farmers contributing practical knowledge and scientists providing ecological expertise resulted in tools that are both scientifically rigorous and practically applicable.

Access the full D4.3 publication at https://zenodo.org/records/15593190. Explore all FRAMEwork publications at https://www.framework-biodiversity.eu/publications.