Organic farming and associated management practices benefit multiple wildlife taxa: a large-scale field study in rice paddy landscapes

1. Organic farming has potential for the conservation of global biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. Despite this, knowledge of the effects of organic farming systems on farmland biodiversity is limited in Asia, the worldwide leader in rice production.
2. We conducted the first national-scale study to investigate the effects of three different rice farming systems (conventional, low-input, and organic) and specific management practices (e.g. herbicide and insecticide applications, crop rotation, and levee-vegetation management) on species richness and abundance of multiple taxonomic groups (plants, invertebrates, Pelophylax and Hyla japonica frogs, cobitid loaches, and birds) in Japan during 2013–2015.
3. Organic fields supported the highest richness and abundance of several taxonomic groups (native/Red List plants, Tetragnatha spiders, Sympetrum dragonflies, and Pelophylax frogs), followed by low-input and conventional fields. We also found taxon-specific responses to spec...