Crop fields complement biodiversity in permanent grasslands across European landscapes
Fabian A. Boetzl, Giovanni Tamburini, Cristina Craioveanu, Andrei Crișan, Toshko Ljubomirov, Vlada Peneva, Laszlo Rakosy, Georg Rieland, Josef Settele, Anja Schmidt, Oliver Schweiger, Teodora Teofilova, Natalia Timuş, Martin Wiemers, Niklaus E. Zimmermann, Boyan Zlatkov, Ola Lundin, Erik Öckinger · 2026
Read Crop fields complement biodiversity in permanent grasslands across European landscapes by Fabian A. Boetzl, Giovanni Tamburini, Cristina Craioveanu, Andrei Crișan, Toshko Ljubomirov, Vlada Peneva, Laszlo Rakosy, Georg Rieland, Josef Settele, Anja Schmidt, Oliver Schweiger, Teodora Teofilova, Natalia Timuş, Martin Wiemers, Niklaus E. Zimmermann, Boyan Zlatkov, Ola Lundin, Erik Öckinger (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13264617.txt.
Description
Fabian A Boetzl led a 2026 field study asking how much crop fields add to wildlife in farm landscapes, next to permanent grasslands. Most plans treat grassland as the hero and crops as a loss. The team compared both habitats across five European countries for plants, butterflies, wild bees, and ground beetles.
They surveyed 86 paired grasslands and oilseed rape fields. Habitat type mattered more than the amount of grassland around a site. Plants and butterflies were richer in grasslands, while bees and ground beetles matched or beat grassland levels in the crop fields. Each habitat held its own set of species. The authors say saving farm wildlife needs friendly care of crop fields too, not just protection of grassland.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Fabian A. Boetzl, Giovanni Tamburini, Cristina Craioveanu, Andrei Crișan, Toshko Ljubomirov, Vlada Peneva, Laszlo Rakosy, Georg Rieland, Josef Settele, Anja Schmidt, Oliver Schweiger, Teodora Teofilova, Natalia Timuş, Martin Wiemers, Niklaus E. Zimmermann, Boyan Zlatkov, Ola Lundin, Erik Öckinger |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 46679 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |