Green treasures: Investigating the biodiversity potential of equine yards through the presence and quality of landscape features in the Netherlands

integrate landscape features effectively on their land. Moreover, current results reveal the addi- tional biodiversity potential that equine yards can attain. The median coverage of 5.85% reflect that half of the yards have room for growth in integrating more landscape features into equine yards. Not surprisingly, commercial and private yards differ significantly with regards to size and number of horses kept, with commercial yards managing, on average, 5 times as much land as Fig 3. Proportion of commercial and private yards (in %) featuring individual LFs. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301168.g003 Table 4. Model summary of univariable hierarchical linear regression. Predictor variable Unstandardized coefficients Beta regression coefficients t Sig. 95% Confidence Interval Semi partial correlation coefficients R-square B Std. Error Lower Bound Upper Bound Type of ownership 3.251 1.722 0.084 1.888 0.060 -0.132 6.634 0.084 0.007 Yard size (ha) −0.344 0.092 −0.164 −3.739 <0.001 −0.525 −0.164 −0.566 0.027 Number of horses -0.120 0.051 -0.104 -2.347 = 0.019 -0.221 -0.020 -0.104 0.011 Soil type -0.204 0.303 -0.303 -0.675 = 0.500 -0.799 0.391 -0.030 0.001 Number of LFs 1.814 0.171 0.426 10.580 <0.001 1.477 2.151 0.426 0.181 Number of trees 0.043 0.034 0.095 1.278 = 0.203 -0.023 0.110 0.095 0.009 Tree lanes total m2 0.006 0.002 0.142 3.223 <0.001 0.002 0.009 0.142 0.020 Tree rows total m2 0.004 0.001 0.289 6.796 <0.001 0.003 0.005 0.289 0.084

Fruit orchard total m2 0.013 0.004 0.150 3.402 <0.001 0.005 0.020 0.150 0.022 Wild Hedges total m2 0.007 0.001 0.269 6.272 <0.001 0.005 0.009 0.269 0.072 Trimmed Hedges total m2 0.001 0.001 0.070 1.583 = 0.114 0.000 0.002 0.070 0.005 Monocultural grassland total m2 0.000 0.001 -0.033 -0.736 = 0.462 -0.002 0.001 -0.033 0.001 Herbaceous grassland total m2 0.001 0.000 0.118 2.660 0.008 0.000 0.002 0.118 0.014 Flowering strips total m2 0.005 0.001 0.244 5.664 <0.001 0.003 0.007 0.244 0.060 Woody strips total m2 0.003 0.001 0.196 4.485 <0.001 0.002 0.004 0.196 0.038 Forage walls total m2 -0.015 0.009 0.073 1.639 = 0.102 -0.003 0.033 0.073 0.005 Buffer strips total m2 0.005 0.001 0.324 7.690 <0.001 0.004 0.007 0.324 0.105 Ponds total m2 0.001 0.001 0.041 0.915 = 0.360 -0.001 0.004 0.041 0.002 Embankments total m2 0.002 0.000 0.205 4.718 <0.001 0.001 0.003 0.205 0.042 Wood piles total m2 0.038 0.014 0.123 2.784 = 0.006 0.011 0.064 0.123 0.015 Cluttered corners total m2 0.011 0.003 0.207 4.473 <0.001 0.006 0.016 0.207 0.043 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301168.t004 PLOS ONE Biodiversity potential of equine yards through landscape features PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301168 April 11, 2024 9 / 16