Artificial agri-environment scheme ponds do not replicate natural environments despite higher aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate richness and abundance

1. Farmland ponds are a highly threatened freshwater habitat which has undergone dramatic losses during the last 200 years due to land drainage schemes and agricultural intensification. Agri-environment schemes (AES) incentivise farmers to adopt farming methods to benefit biodiversity, yet there are a paucity of data evaluating the success of artificially created AES ponds as analogues of natural ponds in an attempt to recreate lost environments.

2. We examined variation in environmental parameters and aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate communities between 38 natural ponds and 91 artificial ponds that were created in south-west Ireland (n=129).

3. Artificial ponds in agricultural grassland did not replicate natural ponds in adjacent semi-natural habitats differing significantly in size, pH, conductivity, productivity (indicated by submerged and emergent plant cover including algae) and surrounding vegetation structure i.e. sward height. These differences significantly influenced...