Tracking research trends on the effects of vegetative strips within
agricultural landscapes: A systematic map update
- Eli Bendall,
- Martin Westgate,
- Neal Haddaway,
- D Lindenmayer
Abstract
Agricultural intensification and land clearing for agriculture has
resulted in loss of biodiversity worldwide, land degradation and reduced
the quality of ecosystems services that assist agriculture. Vegetative
strips such as hedgerows and shelterbelts have the potential to provide
ecosystem service benefits that improve agricultural production and
environmental sustainability. A complex, interdisciplinary body of
evidence exists examining the various social, physical, chemical,
biological and ecological effects of vegetative strips. Here we provide
an update to a systematic map of evidence regarding the social and
environmental effects of vegetative strips within boreal and temperate
regions. We track temporal changes in research trends since the previous
map published on this topic in 2015. We followed the approach the
previous map, searching databases using an identical search string. We
used pre-defined eligibility criteria and layered article screening,
reporting the reasons for article exclusion. We extracted meta-data and
descriptively summarised the results to allow comparison to the previous
map, producing an interactive database that serves as a comprehensive
and up-to-date map of new evidence on top of the previous findings. We
found many trends that were consistent with the previous map, including
terminology trends, study regions, vegetative strip type, strip location
and measured outcomes. We also found that there were key changes in the
publication frequency of studies examining some biodiversity-related
ecosystem services. In addition, several knowledge gaps identified in
the previous map have been filled. A small number of countries in the
Global North continue to drive major changes in publication trends.