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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2025

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Abstract

Biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes is declining, but evidence-based conservation targets to guide international policies for such landscapes are lacking. We present a framework for informing habitat conservation policies based on the enhancement of habitat quantity and quality and define thresholds of habitat quantity at which it becomes effective to also prioritize habitat quality. We applied this framework to insect pollinators, an important part of agroecosystem biodiversity, by synthesizing 59 studies from 19 countries. Given low habitat quality, hoverflies had the lowest threshold at 6% semi-natural habitat cover, followed by solitary bees (16%), bumble bees (18%), and butterflies (37%). These figures represent minimum habitat thresholds in agricultural landscapes, but when habitat quantity is restricted, marked increases in quality are required to reach similar outcomes.

Abstract

Despite the increasing popularity of wind power farms this kind of energy production has been contested, citing cultural, economic, and sometimes even environmental reasons – especially when such power farms are built in areas of significant environmental value and status, as is the case of several areas in the High North. One way to explore this conflict is through understanding the effects of such projects on local ecosystem services (e/s) – i.e., the direct and indirect benefits that ecosystems provide to support and sustain human livelihoods. This article discusses the perceived consequences on e/s after the development of a wind power farm in a Northern Norwegian context (High North), at the area of Kvitfjell/Raudfjell on the island of Kvaløya. Following a mixed-methods approach, combining exploratory data analysis (EDA) with thematic and sentiment analysis, the article presents a recent survey among various actors and stakeholders in the examined area to explore how they perceived the effects of the newly constructed wind power farm on e/s. Our results illustrate that a significant portion of the respondents maintained a critical and even apprehensive attitude on the wind farm development, although some positive economic impacts to the local community were also acknowledged.