Organic fields sustain weed metacommunity dynamics in farmland landscapes

Agro-ecosystems constitute essential habitat for many organisms. Agricultural intensification, however, has caused a strong decline of farmland biodiversity. Organic farming (OF) is often presented as a more biodiversity-friendly practice, but the generality of the beneficial effects of OF is debated as the effects appear often species- and context-dependent, and current research has highlighted the need to quantify the relative effects of local- and landscape-scale management on farmland biodiversity. Yet very few studies have investigated the landscape-level effects of OF; that is to say, how the biodiversity of a field is affected by the presence or density of organically farmed fields in the surrounding landscape. We addressed this issue using the metacommunity framework, with weed species richness in winter wheat within an intensively farmed landscape in France as model system. Controlling for the effects of local and landscape structure, we showed that OF leads to higher local weed diversity and that the presence of OF in the landscape is associated with higher local weed biodiversity also for conventionally farmed fields, and may reach a similar biodiversity level to organic fields in field margins. Based on these results, we derive indications for improving the sustainable management of farming systems.     

江苏省不同农业区土壤线虫群落分布特征

调查了江苏省不同农业区农田土壤线虫群落多样性,分析了土壤线虫数量和群落结构与土壤环境因子的关系,并探讨了土壤线虫对土壤健康的生物指示作用.结果表明： 农田土壤线虫共鉴定出2纲7目19科41属.6个农业区的土壤线虫的密度、群落组成均具有一定的差异性.沿海农业区的线虫数量最多(每100 g干土400条),显著高于徐淮、宁镇扬和沿江农业区(P＜0.05),而沿江农业区的土壤线虫数量最少(每100 g干土232条),这可能是由于土壤质地、年均降雨量和年均气温等因素的差异造成的.地理位置相近的农业区线虫优势属相似.相关性分析结果显示,土壤线虫数量与土壤有机质、全氮、速效氮、速效钾和速效磷均呈显著正相关关系;RDA分析表明,土壤全氮含量、速效磷及pH对线虫群落种属组成影响较大.分析江苏省农田土壤线虫群落空间分布特征,可为农田土壤生态系统健康状况评价提供数据支撑.     

Dietary Intakes and Health Risk of Toxic and Essential Heavy Metals through the Food Chain in Agricultural,Industrial, and Coal Mining Areas of Northern India

Minerals can enter the food chain through industrial and mining activities. Soil-to-vegetable transfer is higher than soil-to-cereal, but human consumption of metals is attributable to balanced diets containing both vegetables and cereals and drinking water. However, the impact of location on intakes of metals from predominantly cereal-based Indian diets is not clear. Hence, the present study was undertaken in selected Agricultural, Industrial, and Coal Mining Areas (AA, IA, CMA) around the Allahabad District in Northern India to compare transfer of toxic metals, Pb, Cd, Cr and essential metals, Fe, Zn, Cu, Co in soil and water to common crops: cereals (rice, wheat, maize) and vegetables (spinach, potato), and to assess Daily Intake of Metal (DIM) and consequent Health Risk Index (HRI). The overall content of all metals, except Cu, in water, soils, and crops followed the pattern CMA > IA > AA. Transfer factors (TFs) followed the sequence spinach > potato > cereals. Quantitatively, however, cereals contribute maximally to a balanced diet, so DIM and HRI were higher from cereals than vegetables. Even though spinach had the highest TFs, cereals contributed maximally to HRI. CMA had the highest metal content so locally grown cereals contributed significantly to intake of both toxic and essential metals.     

Changes in the distribution of multispecies pest assemblages affect levels of crop damage in warming tropical Andes

Climate induced species range shifts might create novel interactions among species that may outweigh direct climatic effects. In an agricultural context, climate change might alter the intensity of competition or facilitation interactions among pests with, potentially, negative consequences on the levels of damage to crop. This could threaten the productivity of agricultural systems and have negative impacts on food security, but has yet been poorly considered in studies. In this contribution, we constructed and evaluated process‐based species distribution models for three invasive potato pests in the Tropical Andean Region. These three species have been found to co‐occur and interact within the same potato tuber, causing different levels of damage to crop. Our models allowed us to predict the current and future distribution of the species and therefore, to assess how damage to crop might change in the future due to novel interactions. In general, our study revealed the main challenges related to distribution modeling of invasive pests in highly heterogeneous regions. It yielded different results for the three species, both in terms of accuracy and distribution, with one species surviving best at lower altitudes and the other two performing better at higher altitudes. As to future distributions our results suggested that the three species will show different responses to climate change, with one of them expanding to higher altitudes, another contracting its range and the other shifting its distribution to higher altitudes. These changes will result in novel areas of co‐occurrence and hence, interactions of the pests, which will cause different levels of damage to crop. Combining population dynamics and species distribution models that incorporate interspecific trade‐off relationships in different environments revealed a powerful approach to provide predictions about the response of an assemblage of interacting species to future environmental changes and their impact on process rates.     

A review of global potentially available cropland estimates and their consequences for model‐based assessments

The world's population is growing and demand for food, feed, fiber, and fuel is increasing, placing greater demand on land and its resources for crop production. We review previously published estimates of global scale cropland availability, discuss the underlying assumptions that lead to differences between estimates, and illustrate the consequences of applying different estimates in model‐based assessments of land‐use change. The review estimates a range from 1552 to 5131 Mha, which includes 1550 Mha that is already cropland. Hence, the lowest estimates indicate that there is almost no room for cropland expansion, while the highest estimates indicate that cropland could potentially expand to over three times its current area. Differences can largely be attributed to institutional assumptions, i.e. which land covers/uses (e.g. forests or grasslands) are societally or governmentally allowed to convert to cropland, while there was little variation in biophysical assumptions. Estimates based on comparable assumptions showed a variation of up to 84%, which originated mainly from different underlying data sources. On the basis of this synthesis of the assumptions underlying these estimates, we constructed a high, a medium, and a low estimate of cropland availability that are representative of the range of estimates in the reviewed studies. We apply these estimates in a land‐change model to illustrate the consequences on cropland expansion and intensification as well as deforestation. While uncertainty in cropland availability is hardly addressed in global land‐use change assessments, the results indicate a large range of estimates with important consequences for model‐based assessments.     

Forest transitions in Eastern Europe and their effects on carbon budgets

Forests often rebound from deforestation following industrialization and urbanization, but for many regions our understanding of where and when forest transitions happened, and how they affected carbon budgets remains poor. One such region is Eastern Europe, where political and socio‐economic conditions changed drastically over the last three centuries, but forest trends have not yet been analyzed in detail. We present a new assessment of historical forest change in the European part of the former Soviet Union and the legacies of these changes on contemporary carbon stocks. To reconstruct forest area, we homogenized statistics at the provincial level for ad 1700–2010 to identify forest transition years and forest trends. We contrast our reconstruction with the KK11 and HYDE 3.1 land change scenarios, and use all three datasets to drive the LPJ dynamic global vegetation model to calculate carbon stock dynamics. Our results revealed that forest transitions in Eastern Europe occurred predominantly in the early 20th century, substantially later than in Western Europe. We also found marked geographic variation in forest transitions, with some areas characterized by relatively stable or continuously declining forest area. Our data suggest extensive deforestation in European Russia already prior to ad 1700, and even greater deforestation in the 18th and 19th centuries than in the KK11 and HYDE scenarios. Based on our reconstruction, cumulative carbon emissions from deforestation were greater before 1700 (60 Pg C) than thereafter (29 Pg C). Summed over our entire study area, forest transitions led to a modest uptake in carbon over recent decades, with our dataset showing the smallest effect (<5.5 Pg C) and a more heterogeneous pattern of source and sink regions. This suggests substantial sequestration potential in regrowing forests of the region, a trend that may be amplified through ongoing land abandonment, climate change, and CO₂ fertilization.     

Reflections on agricultural landscape revegetation in south‐eastern Australia: Interview with Martin Driver

One of Australia's leading on‐ground extension officers describes the successes and lessons learned in The Riverina's native revegetation movement over the 20–25 years – but warns of potential failure of current and future Australian revegetation programs if greater funding security is not delivered.     

不同经营措施对黄龙山辽东栎林的影响

以黄龙山林区蔡家川林场的辽东栎群落为研究对象,以未采伐为对照,采取皆伐、间伐30%、间伐15%三种经营措施,在进行自然恢复6年后,对辽东栎林建群种径级结构、群落物种多样性、土壤养分水分状况进行了对比分析,以探讨不同经营措施对黄土高原南部辽东栎(Quercus liaotungensis)林群落多样性的影响.结果表明:不同经营措施实施后建群种径级结构、群落物种多样性、土壤养分水分等指标均与未采伐林地有差异;经过间伐30%的林地,建群种径级结构、群落物种多样性、土壤养分水分等指标均有显著增加;间伐15%林地上述指标均有增加,但不显著;皆伐后的林地相对未采伐林地,建群种径级结构、群落物种多样性、土壤养分水分等指标降低.间伐与皆伐措施后比较,间伐措施的林地建群种个体生长发育良好,林下有大量幼苗,林地物种多样性丰富,土壤养分水分相对优越;皆伐措施的辽东栎建群种个体发育不良,缺乏足够数量的幼苗,林分物种多样性、土壤水分养分相对较差.未来该地区辽东栎林经营管理中,应以近自然经营措施为主,尽量减少对灌草层破坏,完善群落复层结构;间伐强度拟定为30%,尽量间伐劣质木、病虫木,促进群落向异龄方向发展.