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33 results for “agricultural intensification”

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Data for McGill et.al. 2018. The greenhouse gas cost of agricultural intensification with groundwater irrigation in a Midwest US row cropping system. at the Kellogg Biological Station, Hickory Corners, MI (2013 to 2017)

Dataset Abstract Data for Data for McGill et.al. 2018. The greenhouse gas cost of agricultural intensification with groundwater irrigation in a Midwest US row cropping system. original data source http://lter.kbs.msu.edu/datasets/176

openCustomOct 2018View details →

dryad36/100

Agricultural intensification reduces plant taxonomic and functional diversity across European arable systems.

1. Agricultural intensification is one of the main drivers of species loss worldwide, but there is still a lack of information about its effect on functional diversity of arable weeds communities. 2. Using a large scale pan European study including 786 fields within 261 farms from eight countries, we analysed differences in the taxonomic and functional diversity of arable weeds assemblages across different levels of agricultural intensification in. We estimated weed species frequency in each field, and collected species' traits (vegetative height, specific leaf area and seed mass) from the TRY plant trait database. With this information we estimated taxonomic (species richness), functional composition (community weighted means) and functional diversity (functional richness, evenness, divergence and redundancy). We used indicators of agricultural management intensity at the individual field scale (e.g. yield, inputs of nitrogen fertilizer and herbicides, frequency of mechanical weed control practices) and at the landscape scale surrounding the field (i.e. number of crop types, mean field size and proportion of arable land cover within a radius of 500m from the sampling points). 3. The effects of agricultural intensification on species and functional richness at the field scale were stronger than those of intensification at the landscape scale, and we did not observe evidence of interacting effects between the two scales. Overall, assemblages in more intensified areas had fewer species, a higher prevalence of species with ruderal strategies (low stature, high leaf area, light seeds), and lower functional redundancy. 4. Maintaining the diversity of Europe's arable weed communities requires some simple management interventions, for example, reducing the high intensity of field-level agricultural management across Europe, which could be complemented by interventions that increase landscape complexity.

opencc-zeroDec 2019View details →

dryad36/100

Agricultural intensification heightens food safety risks posed by wild birds

1. Agricultural intensification and simplification are key drivers of recent declines in wild bird populations, heightening the need to better balance conservation with food production. This is hindered, however, by perceptions that birds threaten food safety. While birds are known reservoirs of foodborne pathogens, there remains uncertainty about the links between landscape context, farming practices, and actual crop contamination by birds. 2. Here, we examine relationships between landscape context, farming practices, and pathogen contamination by birds using a barrier-to-spillover approach. First, we censused bird communities using point count surveys. Second, we collected 2024 faecal samples from captured birds alongside 1215 faecal samples from brassica fields and food processing areas across 50 farms spanning the USA West Coast. We then estimated the prevalence of three foodborne pathogens across landscape and livestock intensification gradients. Finally, we quantified the number of plants with faeces. 3. Campylobacter spp. were detected in 10.2% of faeces from captured birds and 13.1% of faeces from production areas. Nonnative birds were 4.1 times more likely to have Campylobacter spp. than native birds. Salmonella spp. were detected in 0.2% of faeces from production areas and were never detected in captured birds. We detected evidence of Shiga toxigenic E. coli in 1 sample across the >3200 tested. 4. Campylobacter spp. prevalence in faeces from production areas increased with increasing mammalian livestock densities in the landscape but decreased with increasing amounts of natural habitat. 5. We encountered bird faeces on 3.3% of plants examined. Despite the impact on pathogen prevalence, landscape context did not increase the number of plants with bird faeces, although on-farm mammalian livestock density slightly did. 6. Synthesis and applications. Food safety and wildlife conservation are often thought to be in conflict. However, our findings suggest that natural habitat around farms may reduce crop contamination rates by birds. This is perhaps because natural habitat can promote native birds that are less likely to harbour foodborne pathogens or because it decreases contact with livestock waste. Our results suggest that preservation of natural habitats around farms could benefit both conservation and food safety, contrary to current standards for "best practices."

opencc-zeroAug 2020View details →

dryad36/100

Agricultural intensification and land use change: assessing country-level induced intensification, land sparing and rebound effect

In the context of growing societal demands for land based products, crop production can be increased through expanding cropland or intensifying production on cultivated land. Intensification can allow sparing land for nature, but it can also drive further expansion of cropland, i.e. a rebound effect. Conversely, constraints on cropland expansion may induce intensification. We tested those hypotheses by investigating the bidirectional relations between changes in cropland area and intensity, using a global cross-country panel dataset over 1961-2016. We used a cointegration approach with additional tests to disentangle long and short-run causal relations between variables, and total factor productivity and yields as two measures of intensification. Over the long run we found support for the induced intensification thesis for low income countries. In the short run, intensification resulted in a rebound effect in middle-income countries, which include many key agricultural producers strongly competitive in global agricultural commodity markets. This rebound effect manifested for commodities with high price-elasticity of demand, including rubber, flex crops (sugarcane, palm oil and soybean), and tropical fruits. Over the long run, strong rebound effects remained for key commodities such as flex crops and rubber. Staple cereals such as wheat and rice manifested significant land sparing. In low-income countries, intensification driven by increases in total factor productivity was associated with a stronger rebound effect than yields increases. Agglomeration economies may drive yields increases for key tropical commodity crops. Our study design could allow addressing other complex long and short run causal dynamics in land and social-ecological systems.

opencc-zeroMay 2020View details →

dryad36/100

Data from: Comparative landscape genetics of two frugivorous bats in a biological corridor undergoing agricultural intensification

Agricultural intensification in tropical landscapes poses a new threat to the ability of biological corridors to maintain functional connectivity for native species. We use a landscape genetics approach to evaluate impacts of expanding pineapple plantations on two widespread and abundant frugivorous bats in a biological corridor in Costa Rica. We hypothesize that the larger, more mobile Artibeus jamaicensis will be less impacted by pineapple than the smaller Carollia castanea. In 2012 and 2013, we sampled 735 bats in 26 remnant forest patches surrounded by different proportions of forest, pasture, crops and pineapple. We used 10 microsatellite loci for A. jamaicensis and 16 microsatellite loci for C. castanea to estimate genetic diversity and gene flow. Canonical correspondence analyses indicate that land cover type surrounding patches has no impact on genetic diversity of A. jamaicensis. However, for C. castanea, both percentage forest and pineapple surrounding patches explained a significant proportion of the variation in genetic diversity. Least-cost transect analyses (LCTA) and pairwise G″st suggest that for A. jamaicensis, pineapple is more permeable to gene flow than expected, while as expected, forest is the most permeable land cover for gene flow of C. castanea. For both species, LCTA indicate that development may play a role in inhibiting gene flow. The current study answers the call for landscape genetic research focused on tropical and agricultural landscapes, highlights the value of comparative landscape genetics in biological corridor design and management and is one of the few studies of biological corridors in any ecosystem to implement a genetic approach to test corridor efficacy.

opencc-zeroDec 2016View details →

dryad36/100

Data from: Urbanisation and agricultural intensification modulate plant-pollinator network structure and robustness

Land use change is a major pressure on pollinator abundance, diversity, and plant-pollinator interactions. Far less is known about how land use alters the structure of plant-pollinator networks and their robustness to plant-pollinator coextinctions. We analyzed the structure of plant-pollinator networks sampled in 12 landscapes along an urbanisation and agricultural intensity gradient, from early spring to late summer 2021, and used a stochastic coextinction model to correlate plant-pollinator coextinction risk with network structure (species and network-level metrics) and landscape context. Networks in intensively managed (i.e. agricultural and urban) landscapes had a lower risk of initiating a coextinction cascade, while networks in less-intensively managed landscapes may be less robust. Network structure modulated the frequency and severity of coextinctions and species loss, while the strength of species interactions increased robustness. Urban networks were more species-rich and symmetrical due to the high diversity of ornamental plants, while intensively managed agricultural landscapes had smaller, more tightly connected, and nested networks. Network structure modulated the frequency of extinctions, which was decreased by greater linkage density, interaction asymmetry, and interaction dependence in the networks, while once an extinction occurred, nestedness and linkage density propagated the degree of the coextinction cascade and species loss. At the species level, species strength was inversely correlated with extinction risk, implying that generalist species with a high number of interactions with specialists had the lowest extinction risk.

opencc-zeroJan 2024View details →

dryad36/100

Data from: Influence of agricultural intensification on pollinator pesticide exposure, food acquisition and diversity

Pollinators are essential for maintaining sustainable crop production, while the decline of pollinators is a widespread concern. Agricultural intensification is one of the primary drivers of the decline of insect pollinators. Agricultural intensification usually involves a decreasing of non-crop semi-natural habitat and an increasing of pesticide exposure for pollinators. However, causal links between agricultural intensification, increased pesticide exposure, and reduced pollinator's food sources and pollinator diversity remain underexplored. We assessed pollinator diversity across a landscape gradient where the proportion of rice ranged from 11% to 85% in South China. We placed honeybee (Apis mellifera) and mason bee (Osmia excavata) in these landscapes and investigated pesticide exposure in honeybee foragers and pollen, and in mason bee pollen and nesting materials. We also assessed the acquisition of food by mason bees. We found a higher frequency of pesticide detection in honeybee foragers and honeybee pollen samples in areas with a higher proportion of rice fields. There was a strong positive relationship between mason bee food acquisition and the proportion of semi-natural habitats, while no significant effects of pesticide exposure on pollinator diversity were found in addition to the effect of semi-natural habitat. Synthesis and applications: Our results suggest that pollinator communities could be at an increased risk of pesticide exposure due to intensified agriculture, while the negative impact on pollinator diversity mainly results from the loss of habitat and/or reduced food sources. This study highlights the importance of conserving semi-natural habitat to mitigate the causes of decline in pollinator diversity. We also recommend long-term, multi-year studies to further understand the mechanisms behind the loss of pollinators in farming landscapes.

opencc-zeroMay 2024View details →

dryad36/100

Agricultural intensification erodes taxonomic and functional diversity in Mediterranean olive groves by filtering out rare species

1. Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES) have been proposed to mitigate the impact of agriculture on both taxonomic and functional biodiversity. However, a better knowledge of the mechanisms involved in the loss of agrobiodiversity is needed to implement efficient AES. An unbalanced effort on research towards arable lands compared to permanent crops, and on fauna relative to plants, is patent, which limits the generalization of AES effectiveness. 2. We evaluated the effects of agricultural management and landscape simplification on taxonomic and functional diversity of the ground herb cover of 40 olive groves. We use a recently developed approach based on Hill numbers (rare, common and dominant species based) to analyze taxonomic and functional dissimilarity between farms with contrasting agricultural practices, and its potential attenuation by landscape complexity. We further explore the filtering effect of agricultural intensification on functional traits, and the relationship between functional and species richness across landscapes. 3. We found that taxonomic and functional dissimilarity of herb assemblages between intensively and low-intensively managed fields was mainly due to rare species. Dissimilarity decreased as landscape complexity increased, evidencing that complex landscapes attenuate the impact of agriculture intensification on herb assemblage composition. Agricultural intensification favoured more functionally homogeneous assemblages and disfavoured the herbs pollinated by insects, while it did not seem to affect wind-pollinated species. 4. Overall, functional richness increased exponentially with species richness across landscapes, but the latter was insufficient to drive any clear enhancement in functional richness in simple landscapes. In contrast, high species richness accelerated the enhancement in functional richness in intermediate and complex landscapes. These results highlight the functional filtering that intensive agriculture has generated for decades in homogeneous olive-dominated landscapes. 5. Herb cover is essential to support the fauna of permanent croplands and their sustainable production. Hence, AES in these croplands should promote management practices favouring the diversity and functionality of herb assemblages. Such AES should be particularly prioritized in homogeneous landscapes, where ground herb cover composition and function has long been homogenized to a great extent.

opencc-zeroJun 2021View details →

dryad36/100

Data for: Simulating effects of agricultural intensification and climate change: Nitrogen fertilization and drought stress decrease insect herbivore performance

Biodiversity is globally under pressure, and the current decline in insect biomass and diversity is likely caused by human activities. Key drivers of biodiversity loss include agricultural intensification and anthropogenic climate change. Nevertheless, a thorough understanding of potential interactions between both factors and the mechanisms underlying insect declines in general is still lacking. Here, we investigate the combined effects of nitrogen fertilization and drought, as applied to host plants, on the preference and performance of the butterfly Lycaena tityrus. Individuals performed best on plants having received medium nitrogen levels, while performance was reduced by either a lack of or strong fertilization, the former potentially caused by nitrogen limitation and the latter by increased concentrations of toxic allelochemicals. Female oviposition preference though was positively related to nitrogen fertilization, resulting in a mismatch between preference and offspring performance at high nitrogen levels. Plant drought stress additionally reduced herbivore performance, and females appeared to suffer more from low-quality food than males. Our results indicate that increasing nitrogen fertilization, as applied in intensive agriculture, may substantially reduce host-plant quality for insect herbivores, which may be exaggerated in the course of climate change due to the more frequent occurrence of droughts. Our study thus contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying human-driven insect declines in agricultural landscapes and beyond.

opencc-zeroDec 2022View details →

dryad36/100

Data from: The fate of nitrogen during agricultural intensification in East Africa: nitrogen budgets in contrasting agroecosystems

The intensification of agricultural systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is necessary to reduce poverty and improve food security but requires increased nutrient applications to smallholder systems. To avoid the negative consequences of intensification that result from many large-scale agricultural systems (e.g., eutrophication), we must better understand how diverse soil systems in SSA will respond to increased fertilizer applications. We tracked nitrogen (N) inputs and outputs in fertilizer trials at two maize (Zea mays)-agroecological regions of contrasting soil type. We measured maize biomass, grain yields, N leaching, and N gaseous losses from a clayey soil in Yala, Kenya, and a sandy soil in Tumbi, Tanzania, with application rates of 0, 50, 75, 100, 150, and 200 kg N ha-1 yr‑1 over multiple years. Using measurements of NO, N2O, NO3-, biomass N, and an 15N enrichment experiment, we show that N budgets in Yala were nearly always negative, meaning more N was exported in yields or lost from the system than was added in fertilizer. In Tumbi, however, N budgets were negative at lower fertilizer levels (0 and 50 kg N ha-1), but positive at higher fertilizer levels (75 and 200 kg N ha-1). At both sites, most of the N was lost through maize biomass/grain removal and N leaching (over 96% of total losses). Gas losses were a minor component of N budgets. These results highlight the importance of tailoring fertilizer recommendations to a farm's specific soil and climatic conditions. However, on these two contrasting sites, fertilizer additions at or below 50 kg N ha-1 do not lead to major losses of N (via gaseous or leaching) and may be recommended at a range of sites across SSA soils in maize agroecosystems.

opencc-zeroJun 2023View details →

dryad36/100