Elsa Berthet

Towards sustainable and multifunctional agriculture in farmland landscapes: Lessons from the integrative approach of a French LTSER platform

Agriculture is currently facing unprecedented challenges: ensuring food, fiber and energy production in the face of global change, maintaining the economic performance of farmers and preserving natural resources such as biodiversity and associated key ecosystem services for sustainable agriculture. Addressing these challenges requires innovative landscape scale farming systems that account for changing economic and environmental targets. These novel agricultural systems need to be recognized, accepted and promoted by all stakeholders, including local residents, and supported by public policies. Agroecosystems should be considered as socio-ecological systems and alternative farming systems should be based on ecological principles while taking societal needs into account. This requires an in-depth knowledge of the multiple interactions between sociological and ecological dynamics. Long Term Socio-Ecological Research platforms (LTSER) are ideal for acquiring this knowledge as they (i) are not constrained by traditional disciplinary boundaries, (ii) operate at a large spatial scale involving all stakeholders, and (iii) use systemic approaches to investigate biodiversity and ecosystem services. This study presents the socio-ecological research strategy from the LTSER Zone Atelier Plaine & Val de Sèvre (ZA PVS), a large study area where data has been sampled since 1994. Its global aim is to identify effective solutions for agricultural development and the conservation of biodiversity in farmlands. Three main objectives are targeted by the ZAPVS. The first objective is intensive monitoring of landscape features, the main taxa present and agricultural practices. The second objective is the experimental investigation, in real fields with local farmers, of important ecosystem functions and services, in relation to pesticide use, crop production and farming socio-economic value. The third aim is to involve stakeholders through participatory research, citizen science and the dissemination of scientific results. This paper underlines the relevance of LTSERs for addressing agricultural challenges, while acknowledging that there are some yet unsolved key challenges.

Applying ecological knowledge to the innovative design of sustainable agroecosystems

The design of sustainable agroecosystems is crucial to meet contemporary environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss and global change. Ecological knowledge, although expected to be an important component of such an endeavour, is to date mainly used under a problem‐solving paradigm. Applying recent design theories, which highlight the differences between innovative design and problem solving, we assess the potential of using ecological knowledge in agroecosystem design in three contrasted French case studies representative of agricultural intensification world‐wide. In all cases, a design approach generated unexplored agroecosystem configurations and management alternatives. This analysis highlights that ecological science is critical for designing sustainable social‐ecological systems, because it orients the design process by identifying key ecological properties to maintain, while opening the range of management options stakeholders can explore. Synthesis and applications. Participatory design approaches of agroecosystems based on ecological knowledge might be key for planning and change: they allow a diversity of stakeholders to contribute to building solutions, thereby strengthening their sense of ownership and responsibility. Infrastructures in support of participatory design processes, set up in close relation to ecological research centres, have the potential to become new cornerstones of innovation for sustainable social‐ecological systems.

Description of long-term monitoring of farmland biodiversity in a LTSER

Understanding the response of biodiversity to management, land use and climate change is a major challenge in farmland to halt the decline of biodiversity. Farmlands shelter a wide variety of taxa, which vary in their life cycle and habitat niches. Consequently, monitoring biodiversity from sessile annual plants to migratory birds requires dedicated protocols. In this article, we describe the protocols applied in a long-term research platform, the LTSER Zone Atelier “Plaine & Val de Sèvre” (for a full description see Bretagnolle et al. (2018) [1]). We present the data in the form of the description of monitoring protocols, which has evolved through time for arable weeds, grassland plants, ground beetles, spiders, grasshoppers, wild bees, hoverflies, butterflies, small mammals, and farmland birds (passerines, owls and various flagship species).