Fertilization using manure minimizes the trade-offs between biodiversity and forage production in agri-environment scheme grasslands

Fig 2. Standardized values for each of the 12 indicators that describe forage, insect communities and plant communities for each treatment. Forage: Re: Ruminant metabolizable energy. Mw: Mean dry weight 2011–2014. Cp: Crude protein. As: Ash. Insect community: Pp: Percent of parasitism. Dpo: Shannon-Weiner diversity of pollinators. Dpa: Shannon-Weiner diversity of parasitoids. Dh: Shannon-Weiner diversity of herbivores. Ba Abundance of bumblebees. Plant community: Np: nectar productivity. Fs: Forb species richness. Dpl: Diversity of plants. No Fe: No- fertilizer. NPK: mineral fertilizer (20:10:10), FYM: farm yard manure, NPK+FYM: mineral fertilizer and farm yard manure. N = 24. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290843.g002 Fig 3. Optimization of the different indicators under each treatment. Optimization point is defined as the point where the mean value is maximized with the lowest standard deviation. Under this approach the optimum treatment is the one that minimizes trade-offs between biodiversity and forage production. Among the treatments FYM, showed the higher mean with the lowest standard deviation. Points show standardized weighted mean. Bars: show standardized weighted standard deviation. No Fe: no-fertilizer, NPK: mineral fertilizer (20:10:10), FYM: farm yard manure, NPK+FYM: mineral fertilizer and farm yard manure. * Indicates significant higher values. FYM has a significant higher weighted mean than NPK and No fertilizer, while NPK+FYM has the highest weighted standard deviation across treatments. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290843.g003 PLOS ONE

Manure minimizes trade-offs between biodiversity and forage production in agri-environment scheme PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290843 October 4, 2023 11 / 18