Background

The LIFE+ 2009 BioDiVine project is about managing biodiversity in vines through landscape. Prevention of pests, diseases and weeds, as well as preservation of soil from erosion or chemical alterations by overuse, salinisation, acidification, or other chemical soil contamination, may be considered at different hierarchical scales. While the field scale has traditionally received much interest in strategic and applied research, the higher hierarchical scales of landscape have only recently gained consideration. Interdisciplinary research on issues such as functional biodiversity and landscape connectivity demonstrates that new options arise when systems management are approached from landscape scale. Over the last decades, many attempts have been made to enhance the quantity and quality of semi-natural elements left in the countryside such as hedges, groves or ground covers. Most mentioned reasons for the improvement of such habitats are:

• To contribute to nature conservation (food, shelter, migration habitats of plants and animals)
• To improve environmental quality (buffer strips to prevent pesticides and nutrients contamination)
• To promote the aesthetic and legacy values of the countryside.

The LIFE+ 2009 BioDiVine projects is about emphasizing the above motivations, by enlarging its scope at a landscape level; and also suggest management plans using biological struggle through conservation to demonstrate and enforce the reliability of functional biodiversity.