Lowland peat meadows are iconic landscapes, of high natural and cultural value, but are under pressure through intensive agriculture.
As these semi-natural grasslands provide crucial ecosystem services, the curve of biodiversity loss should be bend. Dr. Berg obtained a NWA-ORC grant for large transdisciplinary consortia to investigate how land-use extensification may lead to ecosystem recovery. With societal partners in the dairy value chain he analyses the impact of management interventions on species, habitat, and socio-economic farm models. The latest findings indicate that regenerative landscape interventions, by collective action, may lead to recovery of plant and pollinator biodiversity, but not of soil fauna and meadow birds, and that biodiversity recovery does not necessarily a line with climate adaptation assignments in these grasslands. He now aims to address the differential response of biodiversity components to management by adopting trait-based approaches, used to understand underlying mechanisms and to develop indicators that can be used to follow biodiversity recovery. The findings have important implications for evaluating the effectiveness of landscape interventions to improve biodiversity, making low-lying peatland operations profitable for farmers and landowners, and to preserve an inspiring landscape for citizens.