DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1c59zw44r
title: Close to the edge: Spatial variation in plant diversity, biomass and floral resources in conventional and agri-environment cereal fields

description: Non-crop (segetal) plants in arable systems are commonly perceived simply
 as “weeds”, i.e. harmful at worst and undesirable at best. The increase in
 management intensity in European arable systems has vastly reduced the
 populations of all but the most disturbance-tolerant plant species,
 negatively impacting the whole agricultural food web. In recent years,
 efforts have been made to promote agricultural biodiversity through
 measures such as flower strips and unsprayed field margins. However,
 studies of their impacts on the arable flora have rarely considered their
 spatial variation within the crop field. We investigated the spatial
 distribution of vascular plant species richness and their contribution to
 the food web via biomass and flower units in conventional and
 agri-environment cereal fields in six regions of Germany. We studied two
 types of in-crop measures (extensive cereals without pesticides or
 fertiliser, and with or without intercropping with flowering species) and
 one adjacent measure (neighbouring flower strip), recording at 1 m
 intervals from the field edge to interior. These results were then
 extrapolated to illustrate the effects of these measures on resource
 provision at the field scale. Species richness and plant biomass dropped
 off sharply after the first metre in the conventional treatments,
 regardless of the adjacent habitat. The “extensive” treatments maintained
 a much higher level of diversity and resource provision into the field
 interior. At the field level, this can mean more than sixty-fold
 difference in provision of flowering resources between conventional
 management (1900 flower units/ha) and agri-environment measures (127,000
 units/ha for extensive cereals). Synthesis and applications: The strong
 edge effects we found in conventional cultivation support the premise that
 reducing field sizes could play a role in promoting in-crop biodiversity.
 However, incorporating extensive field margins as an agri-environment
 measure would be more efficient at maximising diversity of generalists
 whilst maintaining high yields.
description: # Close to the edge: spatial variation in plant diversity, biomass and
 floral resources in conventional and agri-environment cereal fields
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1c59zw44r](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1c59zw44r) Main results are contained in *data_sutcliffe_et_al_2024_spatial_variation_cereal_fields*. This is vascular plant data collected at increasing distance from the cereal field edge under different management types. Categorisations of the plant species are contained in *species_data_sutcliffe_et_al_2024_spatial_variation_cereal_fields*. Data was collected on six farms in Germany in 2021. ## Description of the data and file structure *data_sutcliffe_et_al_2024_spatial_variation_cereal_fields* | Header | Explanation | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | Level 6 | | | :------- | :------------------------------------------------------------ | :----------------------------------- | :----------------------------------------- | :--------------------------------------- | :------------------------------------ | :--------------- | :---------------- | :- | | uniq | Unique identifier for each transect section | | | | |   | | | | tnum | Numeric version of transect position (metres from field edge) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 10 | | | transect | Transect position | T1 | T2 | T3 | T4 | T5 | T11 | | | farm | Abbreviation of farm identity | Fe | He | Os | Lu | Ri | Zi | | | code | Location of sample according to project coding system | | | | | | | | | date | Date of survey | | | | | | | | | treat2 | Treatment | conv = conventional with grass strip | extn\_flower = extensive with flower strip | extn\_grass = extensive with grass strip | flst = conventional with flower strip | undr = intercrop | | | | crop | Crop species | Dinkel = Spelt | SG = Spring Barley | Sommerhafer = Spring Oats | WG = Winter Barley | WR = Winter Rye | WW = Winter Wheat | | | covcrop | Estimated coverage of the crop in % | | | | | | | | | bio1 | Biomass in 1m² in g | | | | | | | | | nSOWA | Number of all non-crop species (sown and unsown) in 5 m² | | | | | | | | | cW | Coverage weed species in % | | | | | | | | | fuSAO1 | Number of flower units sown and wild in 1 m² | | | | | | | | :----- | :------------------------------------------- | :- | :- | :- | :- | :- | :- | *species_data_sutcliffe_et_al_2024_spatial_variation_cereal_fields* | Header | Explanation | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | | :--------------- | :---------------------------------------------------------------- | :------------------------------------------- | :-------------------------------------------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------- | :-------------------------------------------------------- | :----------------------------------------------------- | | Species | Vascular plant species according to Hand et al. 2023 | | | | | | | n\_plots | Number of transect sections in which the species was detected | | | | | | | p\_plot | Percentage of transect sections in which the species was detected | | | | | | | designation\_rev | Categorisation of species | S = sown as part of a flowering seed mixture | O = other not sown wild (spontaneous) species | A = species categorised as "High Nature Value" species for Germany | W = Weed species according to the definition in the paper | C = crop species (as either current crop or volunteer) | ## Sharing/Access information Data were collected exclusively for this project. There is no further repository containing this data. ## Code/Software See Analysis Documentation in the Supporting Information of the publication