Biodiversity loss has become a global phenomenon, and in temporal regions it is especially recognised in the agricultural landscape. This is not only true for the agricultural are, the crops and grasslands but also for conservation areas within. A study by expert taxonomists of the Entomological Society Krefeld (EVK) based on comprehensive data from decades of standardized insect monitoring provided compelling evidence for a dramatic loss of more than 70% of insect biomass in Germany in the past 27 years (Hallmann et al. 2017), even in landscapes that should be unaffected by human impact (such as in protected areas). The exact drivers of biodiversity loss are not sufficiently examined, changes in nutrient and pesticides inputs might be highly relevant.

The joint research project INPEDIV by the Leibniz Research Alliance on Biodiversity (LVB), managed by Livia Schäffler at the Museum Alexander König in Bonn comprising seven internal and external partner institutions, aims at testing the hypothesis that massive biodiversity losses in the German landscape are to a large extent side effects of pesticide use. The project focus is on protected areas, where consequences of pesticide contamination for biodiversity across several taxonomic groups has not yet been examined. The research project combines the expertise of taxonomists, molecular biodiversity researchers, landscape ecologists and ecotoxicologists for the first integrative study on consequences of agricultural land use for a broad range of species across trophic levels, from plants to insects to bats and was also highlighted in Science  and a documentary. It includes traditional approaches (e.g. vegetation surveys and population assessments in animals) as well as new methods (e.g. metabarcoding, acoustic surveys, remote sensing by drones, trace level pesticide analysis) along transects of decreasing anthropogenic impact.