Farmers' attitudes towards biodiversity shape the effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly management practices for wild bees, but not plants and spiders
Biodiversity continues to decline in European agricultural landscapes despite policies that promote biodiversity-friendly farming. While the ecological drivers of the effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly practices are well-studied, less is known about how farmers' attitudes influence biodiversity outcomes. We examined, in eight European countries, whether positive farmer attitudes towards biodiversity are related to higher on-field biodiversity levels and effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly practices. We combined farmer attitude surveys with field inventories of wild plants, bees and spiders in biodiversity-friendly managed and control fields. We found that, in control fields, none of the examined taxa were associated with farmers' biodiversity attitudes. However, in biodiversity-friendly managed fields, both wild bee abundance and species richness increased with a more positive attitude, resulting in a positive relation between farmers' attitude and the effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly management. This relationship was mainly driven by farmers' perceived necessity of considering biodiversity in their farm management, rather than by general biodiversity attitudes. For wild plants and spiders, no relationship between attitude and effectiveness was observed, possibly because these taxa are less conspicuous and less positively perceived. We additionally found that farmers' attitude was positively related to the diversity of biodiversity-friendly practices implemented on farms. Our results suggest that, while agronomical and economic motivations predominate in conventionally managed fields, farmers' biodiversity attitudes can play a role in both the uptake and the effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly practices, although the latter is taxon-dependent. To improve the effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly practices, our findings stress the importance of addressing the social and motivational drivers of farmers.
Authors
- Vincent Bretagnolle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2320-7755)
- David Kleijn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2500-7164)
- Philippe Jeanneret (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6715-4632)
- Flóra Vajna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4451-855X)
- Sabrina Gaba (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7145-6713)
- Amelia S. C. Hood (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3803-0603)
- Álvaro Pérez‐Gómez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6752-0348)
- Andràs Báldí (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6063-3721)
- Francisco P. Molina (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2425-5246)
- Simon Geoffrey Potts (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2045-980X)
- Elena Velado‐Alonso (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4805-2929)
- Jan Peter Reinier de Vries (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8617-3954)
- Maria Kernecker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6118-9164)
- Félix Herzog (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9472-4891)
- Fabian Klebl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4877-3160)
- Anneli Adler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7525-1224)
- Kati Häfner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6413-4540)
- José G. van Paassen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6190-8026)
- José M. Herrera (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7968-3438)
- Erik Öckinger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7517-4505)
- Jeroen Scheper (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4314-996X)
- Ígnasi Bartomeus (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7893-4389)
- Gyula Szabó (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1813-7246)
- Maura Ganz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-5183-0498)
- Klara Leander Oh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6660-1218)
- Vanesa Rivera
- Vasco S. Mendes
- Csaba Molnár
Institutions
- Magyar Agrár- és Élettudományi Egyetem (HU)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Eurac Research (IT)
- University of Évora (PT)
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SE)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Universidad de Cádiz (ES)
- Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR)
- Estación Biológica de Doñana (ES)
- Sustainability Institute (ZA)
- Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé (FR)
- Zone Atelier Moselle (FR)
- Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (DE)
- HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research (HU)
- Hospital Universitario Puerto Real (ES)
- Agroscope (CH)
- University of Reading (GB)
- University of Göttingen (DE)
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Biological Conservation
- Published
- 2026-08-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2026.112049
- Primary Topic
- Organic Food and Agriculture
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- European Commission