24 July 2025
Agricultural intensification has increased crop yields but caused biodiversity loss, pest outbreaks and environmental damage, threatening essential ecosystem services like natural pest control. In response, the EU and Switzerland are promoting sustainable farming practices—such as organic farming, habitat conservation and reduced pesticide use—to enhance...
16 July 2025
Biodiversity continues to decline despite past conservation efforts, prompting new policies like the EU Biodiversity Strategy, which require national ecosystem condition mapping. However, such mapping, especially for croplands, relies heavily on proxy indicators due to a lack of primary biodiversity data, raising concerns about accuracy. To address...
03 July 2025
As agriculture expands to meet rising demands, biodiversity and ecosystem services often suffer—especially in vineyards, which cover over 7 million hectares globally and still depend heavily on pesticides. Yet, organically managed vineyards in natural habitat-rich landscapes can host diverse communities of pest predators like birds and bats, which provide...
Factors influencing farmers’ decisions to implement biodiversity measures in agricultural landscapes
22 May 2025
Habitat fragmentation in agricultural landscapes poses a serious threat to biodiversity. While measures such as hedgerows and wildflower strips can improve ecological connectivity, little is known about how farmers decide where to implement them. To address this knowledge gap, a SHOWCASE study, conducted by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural...
02 May 2025
Pollinators are the unsung heroes of agriculture, quietly sustaining ecosystems and food systems alike. But how do we protect them in landscapes dominated by intensive farming? This is the question that drove a SHOWCASE early-career researcher, Gabriella Bishop, from Wageningen University towards her field of PhD research - a journey into the heart...
21 March 2025
Biodiversity conservation policies require monitoring systems that are both accurate and cost-effective. Technological innovations, such as citizen science, DNA-based techniques, and AI, offer the potential to improve such monitoring by reducing costs and overcoming technical barriers. Result-based schemes, which reward farmers for achieving measurable...
28 February 2025
The intensification of European agriculture increased food production but severely impacted farmland biodiversity and essential ecosystem services, making farming systems more vulnerable to environmental and economic challenges. To mitigate these effects, the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) promotes agri-environment schemes that incentivise nature-friendly...
03 February 2025
A co-funded SHOWCASE study was recently conducted, bringing together experts in agriculture, ecology and policy to explore the potential of perennial crops in sustainable farming. Authored by project partner CSIC, alongside CIRAD, UFZ, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China Agricultural University, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology,...
15 January 2025
Agricultural landscapes across Europe have been extensively modified, leading to biodiversity loss and reduced ecosystem services. As part of global restoration efforts, initiatives like the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the EU's Biodiversity Strategy aim to promote the restoration of semi-natural habitats, especially grasslands,...
04 October 2024
In a recent co-funded SHOWCASE study, researchers Duccio Rocchini (University of Bologna), Michele Torresani (University of Bolzano) - SHOWCASE partners - and Carlo Ricotta (University of Rome), have explored the importance of spatio-ecological heterogeneity in ecosystems and presented a compelling case for using the Rao’s Q index as an advanced method...
01 October 2024
A study, conducted by Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, University of South Bohemia, Swiss National Park, University of Tartu, University of Sassari and SHOWCASE partners, Free University of Bolzano-Bozen and Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, investigates how flowering affects the applicability of six different remotely sensed...
13 August 2024
A partly-funded SHOWCASE scoping review led by project partner HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, in addition to University of Freiburg, University of Hohenheim, Leuphana University, Museum Koneig, University of Würzburg and Westlake University, provides a global overview of meta-analyses focused on the effects of land-use extensification and diversification...