基于能值理论的循环复合农业生态系统发展评价——以福建省福清星源循环农业产业示范基地为例

循环农业是当前农业可持续发展理念的具体运作模式。对能值分析方法优化,使其更适合循环复合生态系统的应用上进行优化,并以福建省福清星源循环农业产业示范基地为例验证,评价复合生态系统的可持续发展程度和经济效益。结果表明改进的能值分析方法对循环复合农业生态系统的可持续发展评价更科学,复合系统的可持续发展指数比单纯的生猪养殖提高23.44%—33.86%,在4种组合的循环模式中以"生猪养殖-沼气工程-有机肥生产-种植业"循环复合生态系统整体效益最佳,其可持续发展指数最高,环境负载率最低,净能值产出率仅略低于"生猪养殖-沼气工程-种植业"复合系统。     

Habitat percolation transition undermines sustainability in social-ecological agricultural systems

Steady increases in human population size and resource consumption are driving rampant agricultural expansion and intensification. Habitat loss caused by agriculture puts the integrity of ecosystems at risk and threatens the persistence of human societies that rely on ecosystem services. We develop a spatially explicit model describing the coupled dynamics of an agricultural landscape and human population size to assess the effect of different land-use management strategies, defined by agricultural clustering and intensification, on the sustainability of the social-ecological system. We show how agricultural expansion can cause natural habitats to undergo a percolation transition leading to abrupt habitat fragmentation that feedbacks on human's decision making, aggravating landscape degradation. We found that agricultural intensification to spare land from conversion is a successful strategy only in highly natural landscapes, and that clustering agricultural land is the most effective measure to preserve large connected natural fragments, prevent severe fragmentation and thus, enhance sustainability.     

Validating sustainability indicators: Focus on ecological aspects of Flemish dairy farms

Although many indicator-based sustainability monitoring tools for agriculture have been developed in the last decade, considerably less effort has been put on their validation. In the present study, we developed and applied a procedure to validate (i) MOTIFS (Monitoring Tool for Integrated Farm Sustainability), an indicator-based monitoring tool for integrated farm sustainability of Flemish dairy farms and (ii) a selection of ecological indicators (included in MOTIFS), related to nutrient use, energy use, water use and water quality. The procedure considers two steps. The first step is an accuracy evaluation, which consists of a design validation related to the scientific quality of MOTIFS and its selected indicators, and an output validation that is an evaluation of the information supplied by their output. For both validation types, we applied a transdisciplinary approach of stakeholder participation. The second step is a credibility evaluation, which relates to the degree of confidence potential end-users have in MOTIFS and hence their willingness to effectively use it in practice. This involves an end-use validation, for which we designed a test to evaluate (i) the end-use value of the selected indicators as decision aid tools, (ii) the end-use value of MOTIFS as a decision aid tool and communication tool and (iii) the willingness of potential end-users to use MOTIFS in practice. We considered two potential end-user groups: Flemish dairy farmers and ‘sustainability consultants’ (e.g. agricultural advisors assigned by farmer's organisations). Based on the validation results, we made suggestions to improve the tool and its effective application in practice. We concluded that MOTIFS is a potentially effective sustainability monitoring and management tool, since it has major assets that should be incorporated in any indicator-based system: positioning, informing, learning and communicating.     

Agricultural sustainability: concepts, principles and evidence

Concerns about sustainability in agricultural systems centre on the need to develop technologies and practices that do not have adverse effects on environmental goods and services, are accessible to and effective for farmers, and lead to improvements in food productivity. Despite great progress in agricultural productivity in the past half-century, with crop and livestock productivity strongly driven by increased use of fertilizers, irrigation water, agricultural machinery, pesticides and land, it would be over-optimistic to assume that these relationships will remain linear in the future. New approaches are needed that will integrate biological and ecological processes into food production, minimize the use of those non-renewable inputs that cause harm to the environment or to the health of farmers and consumers, make productive use of the knowledge and skills of farmers, so substituting human capital for costly external inputs, and make productive use of people's collective capacities to work together to solve common agricultural and natural resource problems, such as for pest, watershed, irrigation, forest and credit management. These principles help to build important capital assets for agricultural systems: natural; social; human; physical; and financial capital. Improving natural capital is a central aim, and dividends can come from making the best use of the genotypes of crops and animals and the ecological conditions under which they are grown or raised. Agricultural sustainability suggests a focus on both genotype improvements through the full range of modern biological approaches and improved understanding of the benefits of ecological and agronomic management, manipulation and redesign. The ecological management of agroecosystems that addresses energy flows, nutrient cycling, population-regulating mechanisms and system resilience can lead to the redesign of agriculture at a landscape scale. Sustainable agriculture outcomes can be positive for food productivity, reduced pesticide use and carbon balances. Significant challenges, however, remain to develop national and international policies to support the wider emergence of more sustainable forms of agricultural production across both industrialized and developing countries.     

How effective are the sustainability criteria accompanying the European Union 2020 biofuel targets?

The expansion of biofuel production can lead to an array of negative environmental impacts. Therefore, the European Union (EU) has recently imposed sustainability criteria on biofuel production in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). In this article, we analyse the effectiveness of the sustainability criteria for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. We first use a global agriculture and forestry model to investigate environmental effects of the EU member states National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs) without sustainability criteria. We conclude that these targets would drive losses of 2.2 Mha of highly biodiverse areas and generate 95 Mt CO ₂ eq of additional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, in a second step, we demonstrate that the EU biofuel demand could be satisfied ‘sustainably’ according to RED despite its negative environmental effects. This is because the majority of global crop production is produced ‘sustainably’ in the sense of RED and can provide more than 10 times the total European biofuel demand in 2020 if reallocated from sectors without sustainability criteria. This finding points to a potential policy failure of applying sustainability regulation to a single sector in a single region. To be effective this policy needs to be more complete in targeting a wider scope of agricultural commodities and more comprehensive in its membership of countries.     

Carbon for soils,not soils for carbon

The role of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration as a ‘win-win’ solution to both climate change and food insecurity receives an increasing promotion. The opportunity may be too good to be missed! Yet the tremendous complexity of the two issues at stake calls for a detailed and nuanced examination of any potential solution, no matter how appealing. Here, we critically re-examine the benefits of global SOC sequestration strategies on both climate change mitigation and food production. While estimated contributions of SOC sequestration to climate change vary, almost none take SOC saturation into account. Here, we show that including saturation in estimations decreases any potential contribution of SOC sequestration to climate change mitigation by 53%–81% towards 2100. In addition, reviewing more than 21 meta-analyses, we found that observed yield effects of increasing SOC are inconsistent, ranging from negative to neutral to positive. We find that the promise of a win-win outcome is confirmed only when specific land management practices are applied under specific conditions. Therefore, we argue that the existing knowledge base does not justify the current trend to set global agendas focusing first and foremost on SOC sequestration. Away from climate-smart soils, we need a shift towards soil-smart agriculture, adaptative and adapted to each local context, and where multiple soil functions are quantified concurrently. Only such comprehensive assessments will allow synergies for land sustainability to be maximised and agronomic requirements for food security to be fulfilled. This implies moving away from global targets for SOC in agricultural soils. SOC sequestration may occur along this pathway and contribute to climate change mitigation and should be regarded as a co-benefit.     

Why coelacanths are not ‘living fossils’

A series of recent studies on extant coelacanths has emphasised the slow rate of molecular and morphological evolution in these species. These studies were based on the assumption that a coelacanth is a ‘living fossil’ that has shown little morphological change since the Devonian, and they proposed a causal link between low molecular evolutionary rate and morphological stasis. Here, we have examined the available molecular and morphological data and show that: (i) low intra‐specific molecular diversity does not imply low mutation rate, (ii) studies not showing low substitution rates in coelacanth are often neglected, (iii) the morphological stability of coelacanths is not supported by paleontological evidence. We recall that intra‐species levels of molecular diversity, inter‐species genome divergence rates and morphological divergence rates are under different constraints and they are not necessarily correlated. Finally, we emphasise that concepts such as ‘living fossil’, ‘basal lineage’, or ‘primitive extant species’ do not make sense from a tree‐thinking perspective. Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays Tree thinking for all biology: the problem with reading phylogenies as ladders of progress Abstract     

Evaluating environmental sustainability with the Waste Absorption Footprint (WAF): An application in the Taihu Lake Basin,China

The ecological footprint (EF) is an accepted worldwide method for the evaluation of environmental sustainability. However, its utility is limited by the existence of a series of shortcomings in the methodology such as the only-partial inclusion of human generated wastes. To improve the ability of the footprint method to evaluate environmental sustainability, a new footprint-based indicator – the ‘Waste Absorption Footprint’ (WAF) – has been proposed. The purpose of this paper is to test this methodological approach by evaluating the sustainability of the water environment in the Taihu Lake Basin, in densely populated eastern China. Applying the WAF method indicates that anthropogenic discharges of wastes have imposed an absorption pressure on the local water system such that the local water environment is increasingly unsustainable. Furthermore, nitrogen and phosphorus are identified as more critical wastes than organic substances, while domestic discharges are shown to be more important sources compared with those from industry and agriculture, which therefore should be the focus of environmental management and pollution control initiatives. It is demonstrated that the WAF method can provide a wealth of information that can be used for reference by local water environmental management authorities.     

Dependence of sustainability on the configuration of marine reserves and larval dispersal distance

Marine reserves hold promise for maintaining biodiversity and sustainable fishery management, but studies supporting them have not addressed a crucial aspect of sustainability: the reduction in viability of populations with planktonic larvae dispersing along a coastal habitat with noncontiguous marine reserves. We show how sustainability depends on the fraction of natural larval settlement (FNLS) remaining after reserves are implemented, which in turn depends on reserve configuration and larval dispersal distance. Sustainability requires FNLS to be greater than an empir-ically determined minimum. Maintaining an adequate value for all species requires either a large, unlikely fraction (> 35%) of coastline in reserves, or reserves that are larger than the mean larval dispersal distance of the target species. FNLS is greater for species dispersing shorter distances, which implies reserves can lead to: (1) changes in community composition and (2) genetic selection for shorter dispersal distance. Dependence of sustainability on dispersal distance is a new source of uncertainty.     

Problems Inherent to Augmentation of Natural Enemies in Open Agriculture

Augmentation biological control has successfully replaced a lot of insecticide use in ‘closed system’ agriculture (e.g., greenhouses). The profitable commercialization of biocontrol agents in greenhouses has created an incentive to expand markets for mass-reared beneficial insects into open agricultural systems, often without sufficient scientific justification. However, the semi-contained nature of greenhouse culture is often critical to the success of augmentation and can serve to mask potential pitfalls and intrinsic limitations of this approach in open systems. Factors contributing to greenhouse successes include the reduced biological diversity of contained agroecosystems, the prevention of agent dispersal, the ability to maintain environmental conditions within a range favorable for the agent, the exclusion of competitors and natural enemies of the agent that might otherwise diminish its efficacy, and the absence of alternative prey/hosts that could divert predation/parasitism from the target pest. There are also problems arising from collection of source material from locally adapted populations, and the inadvertent imposition of artificial selection in the course of laboratory rearing. Besides highlighting these pitfalls, this paper aims to encourage more consideration of conservation approaches prior to investment in augmentation programs which entice farmers into perpetual cycles of ‘rear and release.’ I argue that although augmentation can benefit agriculture whenever it replaces pesticide applications, it does not constitute an ecologically sustainable solution because it requires continued inputs, and it can distract research attention away from more sustainable objectives. Sustainable biological control is best achieved through modifications to cultural practices that increasingly ‘naturalize’ agroecosystems, thus facilitating the natural recruitment and persistence of beneficial arthropod fauna, combined with habitat management geared to increasing overall plant and arthropod diversity in the agroecosystem.     

A sensitivity analysis to methodological variation in indicator-based urban sustainability assessment: a Quebec case study

Methodological factors are often acknowledged for their impact on the urban sustainability assessment outcomes. The significance of this impact, however, divides those who assign it great importance; to the point of compromising any attempt at sustainability benchmarking using indicators, from those who regard it as having a relatively limited role. In this paper, we aim to contribute to this debate by assessing how methodological choices could influence the variation in the outcomes of indicator-based urban sustainability benchmarking. The paper starts with a literature review outlining the evolution of the approaches adopted since the pioneering experiences in the ‘90s to show a convergence in indicators and data over time. Subsequently, by using the data of the 25 most populous cities in Quebec, we empirically analyse the sensitivity of the cities’ sustainability scores to 18 combinations of estimation techniques, and observe consistency within the outcomes while maintaining general patterns regardless of the approach used. The results suggest that methodological choices play a limited role in the urban sustainability assessment outcomes. Thus, other determinants beyond the evaluation methods are most likely involved and therefore should be a major focus in future research agendas.     

Relationships among multiple aspects of agriculture's environmental impact and productivity: a meta‐analysis to guide sustainable agriculture

Given the pressures on land to produce ever more food, doing it ‘sustainably’ is growing in importance. However, ‘sustainable agriculture’ is complex to define, not least because agriculture impacts in many different ways and it is not clear how different aspects of sustainability may be in synergy or trade off against each other. We conducted a meta‐analysis to assess the relationships between multiple measures of sustainability using novel analytical methods, based around defining the efficiency frontier in the relationship between variables, as well as using correlation analysis. We define 20 grouped variables of agriculture's impact (e.g. on soil, greenhouse gas, water, biodiversity) and find evidence of both strong positive and negative correlations between them. Analysis based on the efficiency frontier suggests that trade‐offs can be ‘softened’ by exploiting the natural between‐study variation that arises from a combination of farming best practice and context. Nonetheless, the literature provides strong evidence of the relationship between yields and the negative externalities created by farming across a range of measures.     

Activating dark earths: somatosoils and the carbonic loops of Amazonian ecologies

Inspired by the fertility and climate change-mitigation properties of the so-called Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs), soil science has devised a technoscientific replica, a soil amendment known as biochar, intended to improve agricultural sustainability and carbon storage in the biosphere. Drawing on fieldwork with Afroindigenous horticulturalists, this article shows, however, that the activation of these soils’ vibrant ecology responds to looping, carbonic, and socially mediated forms of human and other-than-human corporeal interplay. With an ethnography of swidden horticulture in Amazonia, I propose the notion of ‘somatosoils’ to consider that the fertility and other metabolic properties of ADEs might be located not in the soil, but in the relations between the earth's bodies and the specific human gestures that stimulate these soils’ inner life.     

Biodiversity indicators for sustainability monitoring at municipality level: An example of implementation in an alpine region

As is laid down in the convention on biodiversity, it is essential to install a sustainability monitoring system with integrated biodiversity indicators on both the regional and local levels. The resulting data derived from such a system would be instrumental in supporting the work of policy- and decision-makers as well as stakeholders. However, the integration of biodiversity indicators on the local level is still uncommon. Our aim was therefore to produce a set of biodiversity indicators that: (1) reflects all requirements for regional sustainability monitoring on the municipality level and (2) enables the derived multifaceted information to be simplified and used to improve the applicability and implementation of the system. To this end, we also aimed to assess the validity of the selected indicators in a case study area. Together with a team of 20 local experts composed of officials, stakeholders and scientists, we selected five common biodiversity indicators: landscape diversity, undissected landscape, hemeroby, naturalness of the riparian area and agricultural intensity. In addition, to describe the quality of an area in terms of the richness of species living in it, we developed two further indicators ‘area weighted mean species richness of vascular plants’ and ‘frequency weighted absolute species richness of vascular plants’. In terms of practical and political implementation, we also defined theory-based desired levels, from which we derived performance rates.The study was carried out in 2004 for each of the 116 municipalities of South Tyrol, an alpine region in northern Italy and data were analysed using a maximum likelihood estimation (spatial lag model). The results clearly showed that the large variance of indicator values mainly arises from anthropogenic activities, and that all indicators are robust to spatial extent, and thus appropriate for multiscale assessment. Further, applying a factor analysis allowed three dimensions to be identified that account for more than 76% of the total variance: (1) naturalness, (2) landscape structure and (3) species diversity. Hence, factor analysis is an objective approach to reduce the number of indicators without loosing too much information. However, it should be borne in mind that for specific ecological questions, the use of single indicators is still inevitable.     

Meta-performance evaluation of sustainability indicators

There are many different kinds of frameworks for evaluating environmental and sustainability performance at the organizational level (profit or not-for-profit, private or public), sectoral level (e.g. industry, transport, agriculture and tourism), and local, regional or country levels. Despite the diversity of methods and tools to measure sustainable development, indicators are one of the approaches most used. However, these tools do not usually include evaluation of the performance measurement instrument itself. The main objective of this research is to develop a conceptual framework to design and assess the effectiveness of the sustainability indicators themselves. To put the proposed tool into practice, a set of key good-practice factors and meta-performance evaluation indicators is proposed for adoption in a national case study—the national sustainable development indicators system, SIDS Portugal, and the usefulness of this methodology is demonstrated. This approach aims to evaluate how appropriate a set of sustainability indicators is and allow an evaluation of overall performance-monitoring activities and results. Stakeholder involvement is an essential component of the proposed framework. The tool developed could support continuous improvement in the performance of ongoing sustainability indicator initiatives, allowing greater guidance, objectivity and transparency in sustainability assessment processes.     

Threats to sustainability in African agriculture: Searching for appropriate paradigms

This paper attempts to identify the main threats to and sources of sustainability in African agricultural systems by examining cases of unsustainability and resilience at various levels. Current concepts of sustainable agriculture are based mainly on the experiences and norms of western industrial nations and may not be appropriate to sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions. The things we want to sustain comprise a hierarchy of attributes, components, and systems at increasing scales, and it is important to examine the dynamics of sustainability at each significant level as well as the impacts of events at one level on others. Cases of crop declines and of collapses of larger systems indicate that extreme perturbations, both biophysical and social, are more important as causes of unsustainability than suggested in the literature, while the significance of resource degradation or of overuse of technological inputs have been overemphasized. Survey data from Kenya and Nigeria show that the main causes of crop disappearances have been major disease or pest outbreaks, followed by changes in crop preferences. Fertility and land use stresses have been only a tertiary factor. Sources of resilience that have buffered households and larger systems from the impacts of these range from farmers' strategies of crop and income diversification and searches for resistant cultivars to interventions by national and international bodies. Numerous population and large-scale system collapses have also occurred over the past century in Africa, almost all caused by extreme social and/or biophysical perturbations. There is no evidence that land degradation or land use pressure has played a significant role in these. Increased land use pressure has led to the disappearance or alteration of many prior practices, though farmers have generally adapted to these. Resource management systems have also declined due to outmigration as regions undergo a transition from remote and relatively closed systems to more open systems. These may call for a greater rather than lower use of modern technology to enhance the income earning potential of agricultural production.     

A multi-stakeholder participatory study identifies the priorities for the sustainability of the small ruminants farming sector in Europe

The European small ruminants (i.e. sheep and goats) farming sector (ESRS) provides economic, social and environmental benefits to society, but is also one of the most vulnerable livestock sectors in Europe. This sector has diverse livestock species, breeds, production systems and products, which makes difficult to have a clear vision of its challenges through using conventional analyses. A multi-stakeholder and multi-step approach, including 90 surveys, was used to identify and assess the main challenges for the sustainability of the ESRS to prioritize actions. These challenges and actions were identified by ESRS experts including farmers, cooperatives, breeding associations, advisers and researchers of six EU countries and Turkey. From the 30 identified challenges, the most relevant were economy-related challenges such as ‘uncertainty of meat and milk prices’, ‘volatility of commodity prices’, ‘low farm income’, ‘high subsidy dependency’ and ‘uncertainty in future changes in subsidies’ resulting in ‘a sector not attractive to young farmers’. Most of these challenges were beyond the farmer’s control and perceived as difficult to address. Challenges were prioritized using an index, calculated by multiplying the relevance and the feasibility to address measures. The identified challenges had a similar priority index across the whole sector with small differences across livestock species (sheep vs goats), type of products (meat vs dairy) and intensification levels (intensive vs semi-intensive vs extensive). The priorities were different, however, between socio-geographical regions (Southern vs Central Europe). Some of the top prioritized challenges were linked to aspects related to the production systems (‘low promotion of local breeds’ and ‘slow adaptability of high producing breeds’) and market practices (‘unfair trade/lack of traceability’). The majority of the priority challenges, however, were associated with a deficient knowledge or training at farm level (‘poor business management training’, ‘lack of professionalization’, ‘slow adoption of innovations’), academia (‘researchers do not address real problems’) and society as a whole (‘low consumer education in local products’, ‘low social knowledge about farming’, ‘poor recognition of farming public services’). Thus, improved collaboration among the different stakeholders across the food chain with special implication of farmers, associations of producers, academia and governments is needed to facilitate knowledge exchange and capacity building. These actions can contribute to make ESRS economically more sustainable and to adapt the production systems and policy to the current and future societal needs in a more region-contextualized framework.     

Soil salinization and waterlogging: A threat to environment and agricultural sustainability

The development of irrigated agriculture is necessary for fulfilling the rising food requirements of the burgeoning global population. However, the intensification of irrigated agriculture causes the twin menace of waterlogging and soil salinization in arid and semiarid regions where more than 75% of the world's population lives. Waterlogging and salinization have direct and indirect effects on plant growth and yield. The damage to plant growth and yield is much serious when these processes occur simultaneously and generally yield reduction is linearly correlated with the salinity level. The control of shallow watertable with irrigation management and installation of drainage systems are suggestible to control the waterlogging and salinization problems of irrigated agriculture. This paper presents an overview of the different aspects of waterlogging and soil salinization and its impact on the food production and sustainability of irrigated agriculture. Conclusions are provided which could be useful for all the stakeholders.     

Functional metagenomics: a tool to gain knowledge for agronomic and veterinary sciences

The increased global demand for food production has motivated agroindustries to increase their own levels of production. Scientific efforts have contributed to improving these production systems, aiding to solve problems and establishing novel conceptual views and sustainable alternatives to cope with the increasing demand. Although microorganisms are key players in biological systems and may drive certain desired responses toward food production, little is known about the microbial communities that constitute the microbiomes associated with agricultural and veterinary activities. Understanding the diversity, structure and in situ interactions of microbes, together with how these interactions occur within microbial communities and with respect to their environments (including hosts), constitutes a major challenge with an enormous relevance for agriculture and biotechnology. The emergence of high-throughput sequencing technologies, together with novel and more accessible bioinformatics tools, has allowed researchers to learn more about the functional potential and functional activity of these microbial communities. These tools constitute a relevant approach for understanding the metabolic processes that can occur or are currently occurring in a given system and for implementing novel strategies focused on solving production problems or improving sustainability. Several ‘omics’ sciences and their applications in agriculture are discussed in this review, and the usage of functional metagenomics is proposed to achieve substantial advances for food agroindustries and veterinary sciences.     

Insectivorous birds as ‘non-traditional’ flagship species in vineyards: Applying a neglected conservation paradigm to agricultural systems

In intensive farmland, it is often difficult to find charismatic and evocative species to serve as a flagship to inspire conservation actions and awareness. Here, ‘non-traditional' flagship species may play a fundamental role in promoting more sustainable and biodiversity-friendly agriculture and achieving conservation targets in this strongly artificial habitat.We investigated the abundance (measured in number of territories) of two insectivorous avian species, spotted flycatcher and common redstart, in response to environmental characteristics and agricultural management practices in Italian vineyards at landscape and field scales. We evaluated whether these species could be used as ‘non-traditional’ flagships in this agroecosystem.We found that both species were positively affected by vineyard cover, but not all typologies of vineyards are equally suitable for them. The traditional pergola trellising system was favoured by both species, whereas spalliera vineyards exerted negative effects. The spotted flycatcher commonly occurred in intensive vineyards on valley floors where its abundance was negatively affected by young plantations, which provide limited nesting opportunities, and by the cover of organic vineyards. Conversely, the common redstart was positively affected by traditional elements interspersed in the vineyard matrix (i.e. hedges, tree rows, and isolated rural buildings), which were more abundant in the less intensively cultivated valley sides. At the field scale, common redstarts selected for grass sward shorter than 20 cm, which highlights the importance of active sward management for this ground-feeding species.Based on our results, we proposed using the spotted flycatcher as a ‘non-traditional’ flagship species for intensive vineyards and the common redstart for the less intensive vineyards.