NWO - Development of effective strategies for the conservation and development of landscape wide aquatic biodiversity in agricultural areas

Wetlands house a very significant portion of biodiversity, part of which is also situated outside nature reserves and protected areas. Intensification of agricultural land use and urbanization do not only lead to deterioration of local habitat quality, but also in a homogenization of the environment, habitat loss through destruction of wetlands and changed connectivity patterns. These changes strongly affect the structure and functioning of aquatic metacommunities and may lead to the loss of species, functional groups or even entire community types at the regional scale. Conservation strategies based on the management of local communities offer only limited guarantees for the long term conservation of total biodiversity. At present, the development of an integrated management at the landscape scale is strongly hampered by uncertainties about the precise mechanisms through which land use changes affect biodiversity. Using the results of a large scale field survey and the analysis of existing databases on biodiversity in The Netherlands, we will study the metacommunity structure and diversity of multiple groups of aquatic organisms along a gradient of land use intensity. Our project will (1) provide a mechanistic understanding of the factors that determine aquatic biodiversity at the landscape scale, (2) reveal the pathways through which major tendencies of land use change can affect landscape biodiversity, and (3) identify how the response patterns differ among groups of aquatic organisms. Finally (4), in close collaboration with stakeholders, we will use these insights to develop cost-effective strategies for the management of landscape wide aquatic diversity.