Agriculture and Ecosystem Services
Our mission
Our group focuses on how agricultural and environmental policies affect both people and nature. We study how they influence farmers’ wellbeing and actions as well as biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. We want to understand how agricultural systems work at a societal and ecological level, and find out how they could be made more sustainable. Throughout, we want to deliver scientific knowledge that can have an impact on policies and practices.
Current Projects:
CAP4GI
“Leverages and potentials in the Common Agricultural Policy for improved support of Green Infrastructure, biodiversity and ecosystem services”
Daniel Vedder, Lea Kolb, Lea Kahoun, Judith Rakowski
In CAP4GI ("CAP for Green Infrastructure"), we want to find out how the CAP (beyond agri-environment schemes) affect the work of farmers in Germany and how economically and ecologically useful they are. To do so, we use a two-stage computer model to explore how the policy context affects farmers’ decisions and thus shapes the agricultural landscape, and how this subsequently affects biodiversity and ecosystem services.
iCAP-BES
“Impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy on Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and people”
Guy Pe’er, Aletta Bonn, Carla Cerda
Aims to examine how different CAP instruments affect biodiversity, ecosystems and farmers across the EU; and to deliver science-based recommendations to improve the CAP’s design and implementation. Our current analytical work focuses on butterflies, to investigate how different CAP instruments affect biodiversity through changes in farmers’ land management choices. Science-policy interactions are taking place at various levels, promoting close and frequent interactions with policymakers to synthesise and deliver recommendations for improved performance of the CAP toward its biodiversity objective.
Agroecology-TRANSECT
Linn Schaan, Elizabeth Finch
Past Projects:
Birds@Farmlands
“Developing tools to support farmland bird conservation in the EU”
Judith Rakowski, Guy Pe'er
Conservation Schemes for the Northern Lapwing and the Grey Partridge
GrazeLIFE
“Grazing for wildfire prevention, ecosystem services, biodiversity and landscape management”
Julia Rouet-Leduc
Publications
Published/in press publications
Pe’er, G., J.A. Finn, M. Díaz, M. Birkenstock, S. Lakner, N. Röder, Y. Kazakova, T. Šumrada, P. Bezák, E.D. Concepción, J. Dänhardt, M.B. Morales, I. Rac, J. Špulerová, S. Schindler, M. Stavrnides, S. Targetti, D. Viaggi, I.N. Vogiatzakis, H. Guyomard (2022) How can the European Common Agricultural Policy help halt biodiversity loss? Recommendations by over 300 experts. Conversation Letters. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12901
Rouet-Leduc, J., Pe'er, G., Moreira, F., Bonn, A., Helmer, W., Shahsavan Zadeh, S.A.A., Zizka, A. & van der Plas, F. (2021) Effects of large herbivores on fire regimes and wildfire mitigation. Journal of Applied Ecology, 58, 2690-2702. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13972
Pe'er, G., Bonn, A., Bruelheide, H., Dieker, P., Eisenhauer, N., Feindt, P.H., Hagedorn, G., Hansjürgens, B., Herzon, I., Lomba, Â., Marquard, E., Moreira, F., Nitsch, H., Oppermann, R., Perino, A., Röder, N., Schleyer, C., Schindler, S., Wolf, C., Zinngrebe, Y. & Lakner, S. (2020) Action needed for the EU Common Agricultural Policy to address sustainability challenges. People and Nature, 2, 305-316. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10080
Pe'er, G., Zinngrebe, Y., Moreira, F., Sirami, C., Schindler, S., Müller, R., Bontzorlos, V., Clough, D., Bezák, P., Bonn, A., Hansjürgens, B., Lomba, A., Möckel, S., Passoni, G., Schleyer, C., Schmidt, J. & Lakner, S. (2019) A greener path for the EU Common Agricultural Policy. Science, 365, 449-451. 10.1126/science.aax3146
Candel, J., S. Lakner, and G. Pe’er (2021) Europe’s reformed agricultural policy disappoints. Nature 595, 650 (correspondence)