The European payment for ecosystem services in the agricultural sector, or agri-environmental schemes (AES), have shown limited success in stopping biodiversity loss due to the mismatches between the scale at which they are adopted and the scale of ecological processes. This study analyzes the spatial distribution of farmer participation in the “Improvement of the steppe habitats of the Natura 2000 Network” AES in Catalonia (Spain) to test and explain potential agglomeration patterns. Our findings evidence spatial agglomeration of AES enrollment both within the farm (with farmers enrolling their adjacent or nearby plots in the scheme) and among farms (with farmers that adopt AES being near each other). Plots under the Natura2000-AES are located within a maximum distance of 2.4 km from their nearest enrolled plots, which would provide sufficient habitat continuum to allow for birds’ mobility across landscapes. Our results also indicate that participation concentrates on larger, non-irrigated and/or fallow plots, farms that are managed by professionals, young farmers, and/or members of a farmer organization, and municipalities with lower socioeconomic indexes. These results contradict the assumption that there are no agglomeration patterns in the AES context and reveal the interest of further studying the socio-ecological factors that underlie spatial agglomeration patterns of AES and designing landscape-management strategies accordingly.

中文翻译：

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揭示农业环境计划中的空间集聚模式：来自加泰罗尼亚 Natura 2000 网络草原栖息地改善的证据（西班牙）

欧洲对农业部门生态系统服务或农业环境计划（AES）的支付在阻止生物多样性丧失方面取得的成功有限，因为它们的采用规模与生态过程的规模不匹配。本研究分析了加泰罗尼亚（西班牙）农民参与“Natura 2000 网络草原栖息地改善”AES 的空间分布，以测试和解释潜在的集聚模式。我们的研究结果证明，农场内部（农民将其相邻或附近的地块登记在计划中）和农场之间（采用 AES 的农民彼此靠近），AES 注册的空间集聚。 Natura2000-AES 下的地块与其最近的登记地块的最大距离在 2.4 公里以内，这将提供足够的栖息地连续体，以便鸟类在景观中活动。我们的结果还表明，参与集中在较大的、非灌溉和/或休耕地、由专业人员、年轻农民和/或农民组织成员管理的农场，以及社会经济指数较低的城市。这些结果与 AES 背景下不存在集聚模式的假设相矛盾，并揭示了进一步研究 AES 空间集聚模式背后的社会生态因素并相应设计景观管理策略的兴趣。