Lower diversity of plant and animal farmland species are usually reported where cropland has been aggregated into larger fields, which raises prospects of curbing declines in European farmland biodiversity and associated ecosystem services by halting trends to field size increases associated to agricultural intensification, without having to set aside arable land for conservation. Here, we consider the factors underlying trade‐offs between farmer income and biodiversity as mediated by field size at local and landscape scales, and how these trade‐offs may be overcome. Field sizes are still increasing, facilitated by increasing farm sizes and land consolidation. Decreases in working time and fuel expenses when fields are larger, uptake of larger machinery and subsidies favoring larger farms provide incentives to manage land in larger units, putting farmland biodiversity further at risk. Yet, field size‐mediated ecological–economic trade‐offs are largely ignored in policy and research. We recommend internalizing the ecological effects of changes in landscape‐scale field size into land consolidation scheme design, ensuring that EU Common Agricultural Policy post‐2020 rewards farmers that maintain and recreate fine‐grained landscapes where these are essential for farmland biodiversity targets, and reducing economic–ecological trade‐offs by stimulating agricultural research and innovation for economically efficient yet biodiversity‐friendly farming in fine‐grained landscapes.

中文翻译：

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欧洲景观的田间规模和农田生物多样性的未来

据报道，农作物聚集在较大的田地中，动植物农田物种的多样性较低，这通过阻止与农业集约化有关的田间面积增加趋势而制止了上升趋势，从而遏制了欧洲农田生物多样性和相关生态系统服务的下降前景保留耕地进行保护。在这里，我们考虑了农民收入与生物多样性之间权衡取舍的因素，这些因素是由当地和景观规模的田间规模所介导的，以及如何克服这些取舍。农场规模的扩大和土地合并的推动下，田间规模仍在增加。当田地面积较大时，工作时间和燃料费用的减少，大型机械的购置以及对大型农场有利的补贴为管理较大单位的土地提供了动力，使农田生物多样性进一步面临风险。然而，在政策和研究中，田间规模介导的生态经济权衡在很大程度上被忽略了。我们建议将景观尺度领域大小变化的生态影响纳入土地整合计划设计中，以确保2020年以后的欧盟共同农业政策奖励那些维护和重建细粒度景观的农民，这些景观对于农田生物多样性目标至关重要，并减少通过刺激农业研究和创新，在细粒度景观中实现经济高效但对生物多样性有利的农业，实现经济与生态之间的权衡。