Samenvatting

Past decades traditional agricultural landscapes characterized by a wide variety of grasslands, field boundaries, watercourses, and trees started to disappear. Population growth required an ever-increasing demand for food and traditional agricultural systems were converted to monocultures. With this conversion, arthropods started to disappear effecting the ecosystem since they contribute to ecosystem services such as decomposition, nutrient cycling, carbon storage, water infiltration and storage, natural pest control, and pollination. Also, monoculture farming systems are more susceptible to erosion and are often polluted due to nutrients, agrochemicals (pesticides), organic matter, drug residues, sediments, and saline drainage.