Study to shed light on impact of farms

Birds, bees, wasps and worms are among the species to be studied in a new project looking at the impact of farming on Ireland…

Birds, bees, wasps and worms are among the species to be studied in a new project looking at the impact of farming on Ireland's natural environment.

The three-year project hopes to measure the range and number of "indicator species" found on Irish farms as a way to gauge the negative impact of intensive farming.

The €1 million project comes amid growing evidence of the negative impact of some intensive farming practices on animal and plant life in the Irish countryside.

Initial research has already suggested that some insects such as the bumblebee have seen a dramatic fall-off in numbers in the Irish countryside, which has been linked to the spread of intensive farming practices.

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The use of some chemicals and the reduction in the number of hedgerows and other wildlife havens on farms are being blamed on the decline.

However, scientists involved in the research said that the results of the study could be used to identify measures that could be taken on intensive farms to increase the variety of wildlife without impacting to any great extent on production.

In contrast to many other European countries, there is no basic data on the variety and extent of wild animal, bird, insect and plant life in the Irish countryside, which poses huge difficulties in drawing up measures to protect the natural environment. The research is to be headed by a team of scientists based at the school of biological and environmental science at UCD.

Called the AG Baseline study, it will measure biodiversity in 180 different sites across the country over a three-year period.

It follows work carried out in an ongoing study by the same scientists, called Ag Biota, which has identified the best way to measure biodiversity in Irish farms.

Birds, bumblebees, parasitic wasps and water insects were all identified as very good measures of biodiversity, which corresponds to the general health of the natural environment.

Dr Gordon Purvis of UCD, who is heading up both projects, said that the new project would now set out to measure the extent of biodiversity across a range of the Irish countryside, and the types of farmland with the best levels of biodiversity.

"At the end of it we hope to have an awful lot of baseline data about the nature and diversity of habitats on Irish farms," he said.

The new study will expand on the work of the Ag Biota study, which has already found evidence of links between intensive farming methods and a decline in biodiversity.

This includes work by Dr John Breen and postgraduate researcher Veronica Santorum at the University of Limerick, which has found that typical farmland in Ireland now normally has between two and three species of bumblebee. Dr Breen said this compared with his own records dating back to the 1970s which showed that it was common to find between eight and nine of the 18 species of bumblebee in Ireland on the same sites.

Dr Purvis said the research should not be seen as an attempt to blame farmers for damage to the environment.

"They are the custodians of the land and it should be seen as an aid to help them to continue in that role."

He said that the project should also be able to identify the types of farming practices that would contribute to improving biodiversity.

These could then be promoted through the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme, he suggested, through which farmers receive additional funding to manage their land in a more environmentally friendly manner.

Up to 180 farm sites are to be selected for study in the new Ag Baseline project, and 60 will be studied in each of the next three years.

These are to be in a general line between Sligo and Cork, and will include almost all grass farmland types from intensive dairy farms to smaller part-time sheep farms.

The €€1 million project is being funded by the Department of Agriculture and will be overseen by scientists at UCD.

The study will focus on measuring four different species groups: birds, bumblebees, parasitoid wasps and aquatic invertebrates, or insects that live in water.

Research carried out by the same scientists have identified these groups as some of the best to measure the overall health of the natural environment in terms of diversity.

Birds have been chosen in part because of their popularity with the general public. "They are seen as charismatic," Dr Gordon Purvis, who is heading up the study, explained. The fact that they are high up in the food chain also means they are a good overall indicator of the health of the countryside in which they live.

Bumblebees, also seen as a talismanic indicator of environmental health, are an extremely important part of any habitat, due to their role in pollination.

A decrease in such insects poses a significant threat for plant-life diversity as a result.

Parasitoid wasps have been selected because of the high number of species and the fact they are relatively high in the food chain. Ranging in size from the microscopic to the size of a fly or beetle, parasitoid wasps differ from the common summer wasp in that they don't sting.

Instead adults lay eggs in other insects, which then hatch and kill the host. There are believed to be as many parasitoid species as there are insect species.

Aquatic invertebrates, or worms and insects that live in water, are also a key group and are very sensitive to water pollution.