Rural agricultural mosaic landscapes and novel indicators of ecoacoustic diversity

Background and challenges

Temperate rural landscapes have undergone deep changes under the combined impacts of climate and land use changes. To better quantify the socio-ecological dynamics behind these changes, it is necessary to use integrative metrics that account for the complexity of the relationships between agricultural practices, landscape heterogeneity and biodiversity. The sound dimension of biodiversity has benefited from major conceptual and methodological advances with the emergence of landscape ecoacoustics and acoustic diversity indices making it possible to simultaneously quantify sounds from biological and anthropogenic origins. Here, we will test the hypothesis that the acoustic diversity of rural landscapes increases with the heterogeneity of composition and configuration of forest-farmland mosaics, while also being favoured by mixed crop-livestock systems tending towards extensification of management (organic farming and agro-ecological transition practices). In particular, we will analyze the effects of the amount and spatial distribution of permanent grasslands on the acoustic diversity of rural landscapes in a network of INRAE long-term study sites in France: ZA Pyrénées Garonne (Occitanie), Experimental Unit Saint Laurent de la Prée (Charente-Maritime) and ZA Armorique (Bretagne). All these sites also benefit from annual biodiversity monitoring, which will help to clarify the socio-ecological processes driving the acoustic diversity of rural landscapes.

INRAE units involved

• DYNAFOR Joint Research Unit - Agriforestry Landscape Dynamics and Ecology
• BAGAP Joint Research Unit - Agroecology and Landscape Planning 
• St Laurent de la Prée Experimental Unit

External partnership

• Laboratoire LADYSS Joint Research Unit CNRS - Social Dynamics and Recomposition of Spaces Laboratory
• SETE Joint Research Unit CNRS - Theoretical and Experimental Ecology Station
• University of Stirling, United Kingdom, Scotland
• ISPRA, Italy