Farmscape Ecology

Farming is ever-evolving. Today, when we think about what's to come next for farmers a key question is, 'How do we produce food and still maintain a livelihood for farmers, while respecting the needs of other organisms with which we share the land. Recent biodiversity decline can be partially attributed to the impacts of farming, including habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation, pesticide-related plant and animal mortality, and the effects of a changing climate on wlidliefe, plants, soil and water quality. For the past several years a small team of ecologists, herpetologists, micro-biologists, ornithologists, hydrologists and farmers in New York's Hudson Valley have been trying to answer the question, 'Can wildlife and farming co-exist?'