Christian Pedersen
Forsker
(+47) 974 34 123
christian.pedersen@nibio.no
Sted
Ås - Bygg O43
Besøksadresse
Oluf Thesens vei 43, 1433 Ås (Varelevering: Elizabeth Stephansens vei 21)
Biografi
I hold a Ph.D. in ecology and I am generally interested in the factors that shape population and community dynamics. I have worked for many years in arctic and alpine areas where my focus has been herbivore-plant interactions in relation to climate change. Currently my work focus on how land use and land use change in the agricultural landscape affect biodiversity, population dynamics and community composition using birds and plants as indicators. Main responsibilities include management of and reporting from the Norwegian monitoring program for agricultural landscapes, with particular focus on the development and use of indicators of biodiversity.
Sammendrag
The study focuses on ecosystem services, historical aspects, and natural diversity. Specifically, it assesses possible proxies for investigating a set of cultural ecosystem services from the Norwegian agricultural landscape. Agricultural areas on the Norwegian land cover map surrounded by a 100 m wide buffer zone were analyzed for recorded historical buildings, cultural heritage sites, red-listed vascular plant species (defined as being at varying degrees at risk of extinction), and red-listed nature types (defined as endangered or vulnerable). The results indicate significant contributions from agricultural landscapes with respect to historical buildings, cultural heritage sites, and red-listed plant species. Regarding red-listed nature types, the contributions were diverse. The ecosystem proxies investigated showed increasing distribution trends with increasing proportions of agricultural landscapes in the spatial units, with a sharp increase with smaller area sizes. However, for cultural heritage sites the trend was different when the proportion of the agricultural landscape was below 25%; it showed a very slow increase. In conclusion, the study highlights the agricultural landscape’s diverse contributions to the investigated ecosystem services in Norway, prompting the need for further research on additional ecosystem services to ensure the continued delivery of environmental and social well-being.
Forfattere
Signe Nybø Anders Lorentzen Kolstad Bálint Czúcz Erik Framstad Hanno Sandvik Joachim Paul Töpper Eirin Marie Bjørkvoll Sylvie Clappe Aud Helen Halbritter Ken Olaf Storaunet Wenche Dramstad Matthew Grainger Sigrid Haande Christian Pedersen Ann Kristin Schartau Vigdis VandvikSammendrag
Rapporten publiseres i desember 2025
Sammendrag
Agricultural land abandonment is increasingly affecting rural and low-intensity farming regions across Europe, raising concerns about its impact on biodiversity. While some species may benefit from reduced human disturbance, many species in semi-natural ecosystem types depend on traditional agricultural management to maintain their ecological integrity. This study examines whether abandoned agricultural land in Norway contains semi-natural ecosystems that may hold important remnant populations of red-listed plant species and where continued cessation of farming may further threaten these biodiverse ecosystems. Using spatial data on abandoned farmland, semi-natural ecosystem types and species observations, we identify areas of conservation interest and assess the extent to which these areas support endangered species. In addition, we conducted a time-series analysis of vegetation change using NDVI data (2017–2024) to evaluate whether abandonment led to detectable ecological succession. We also analyzed the spatial distribution of abandonment and its correlation with proximity to active farms to understand regional patterns of abandonment. Our results show that only a small percentage (3.7 %) of the abandoned agricultural land considered in this study overlaps with known semi-natural ecosystem types, yet these areas support a significant number of red-listed plant species. The NDVI analysis revealed generally weak but positive greening trends, suggesting early successional changes that are not yet statistically significant across most habitat types. Our method thus suggests a potential approach to allocate limited management resources to key locations. At present, the amount of semi-natural ecosystems is probably underestimated, however, because of limited and time-consuming mapping activity. These findings emphasize the need for more extensive mapping and targeted conservation efforts and highlight the risks posed by abandonment in biodiversity rich semi-natural ecosystem types.
