Understanding vertebrate ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes - Methods, multidisciplinary, perspectives and innovations

With: Dr. Bea Maas, University of Vienna - Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research

Birds and bats play a major role in the provision of multiple ecosystem services that are considered to be of high importance for more biodiversity friendly and sustainable farming practices I will present an overview of available research on this topic that demonstrates the tremendous economic impact of vertebrate pest suppression services in different agricultural systems, but also stresses the importance of considering spatio temporal management factors and persistent research

implementation gaps Scientific findings from previous projects will be linked to the current ‘state of the art’ of understanding vertebrate ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes, and potential research applications in temperate agroforestry systems,

such as European olive orchards The overview will touch upon a wide variety of methods and applications such as experimental field research social surveys, and development/application of smartphone apps