Browsing by Subject "Butterfly"

The diversity of nature has declined significantly over the past decades. The agricultural diversity has the same trend and the agricultural environments includes of high-value habitats and their associated biodiversity. In the EU and in the Finnish environmental schemes, therefore, efforts have been made to protect and increase biodiversity. Since 2009, voluntary nature management fields have been part of the Finnish’s agri-environmental measures in the agri-environment scheme. These nature management fields include perennial grass fields, game fields, landscape fields and meadow fields. Nature management fields are used specifically to maintain the diversity of the agricultural environment. This study examined two types of nature management fields in summer of 2013. The variety of vascular plants, butterflies and bumblebees was observed in Uusimaa, Finland. The study consists of 40 field blocks, divided into perennial grassland fields (3-4 years) and meadow fields (over 8 years). Nature management field types differed from each other by vegetation, establishment and temporal change. The aim of this study was to provide information which can help in the design and management of nature management fields. The intention is to provide insight on what kind of vegetation could be used to encourage increase in the number and diversity of pollinators, as well as, what kind of the nature management fields promote environmental diversity in farmland. This study was conducted as part of Marjaana Toivonen's dissertation project, “Enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services through environmental Fallows”. Vegetation was clearly influenced by the time and what was sown in the field. The old perennial grassland fields can preserve and safeguard the permanence of species. Young meadow fields are sown usually with flower seed mixtures. Thus, the abundance of flowering plants is high and the plants provide pollen and nectar for the insects. It was also found that the vegetation was divided according to the type of nature management fields. With pollinators, this trend was not observed as clearly. However, bumblebees were most common in meadow fields. Clear division between the types of fields was not seen in butterflies but they appeared to prefer grassland fields. This study shows that both grassland and meadow fields are needed for protecting biodiversity. Nature management fields have an important role as the multi-species vegetation patches which allow organisms to survive, get food and travel in otherwise monocultural farming environments.