Table 5.

The nature of evidence showing concomitant declines of farmland biodiversity in the UK and in continental Europe.

authors	type of study	taxa	nature of evidence
Donald (1998)	review	invertebrates & plants	significant change in populations with a preponderance of declines. Plant diversity, abundance and seed bank have declined. Trends in invertebrate populations have been stable, or have declined
Southerton & Self (2000)	review	plants & arthropods	increase and decline of species associated with farmland. Many arable plants have become rare, but some attained pest status. Many arthropods have declined
Benton et al. (2002)	correlation	arthopods & birds	Temporal links between the declines of farmland bird and invertebrate populations and changes in agricultural practices
Robinson & Sutherland (2002)	review	plants, invertebrates, vertebrates (reptiles, birds & mammals)	widespread decline in the populations of many groups of organisms associated with farmland. Marked loss of specialized taxa in favour of generalist species
Pitkänen & Tiainen (2001)	review of comprehensive monitoring	plants, birds, butterflies, bees & dung beetles	widespread declines in many taxa, loss of diversity and some extinction
Thomas et al. (2004)	comparison of changes in national geographical ranges	plants, birds & butterflies	28% of plants, 54% of birds and 71% of butterflies had declined in range size
van Strien et al. (2004)	comparison of species trends in grassland	birds & butterflies	parallel declines of butterflies and birds