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- Lichtenberg, Elinor M., et al.
(author)
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A global synthesis of the effects of diversified farming systems on arthropod diversity within fields and across agricultural landscapes
- 2017
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In: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 23:11, s. 4946-4957
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Agricultural intensification is a leading cause of global biodiversity loss, which can reduce the provisioning of ecosystem services in managed ecosystems. Organic farming and plant diversification are farm management schemes that may mitigate potential ecological harm by increasing species richness and boosting related ecosystem services to agroecosystems. What remains unclear is the extent to which farm management schemes affect biodiversity components other than species richness, and whether impacts differ across spatial scales and landscape contexts. Using a global metadataset, we quantified the effects of organic farming and plant diversification on abundance, local diversity (communities within fields), and regional diversity (communities across fields) of arthropod pollinators, predators, herbivores, and detritivores. Both organic farming and higher in-field plant diversity enhanced arthropod abundance, particularly for rare taxa. This resulted in increased richness but decreased evenness. While these responses were stronger at local relative to regional scales, richness and abundance increased at both scales, and richness on farms embedded in complex relative to simple landscapes. Overall, both organic farming and in-field plant diversification exerted the strongest effects on pollinators and predators, suggesting these management schemes can facilitate ecosystem service providers without augmenting herbivore (pest) populations. Our results suggest that organic farming and plant diversification promote diverse arthropod metacommunities that may provide temporal and spatial stability of ecosystem service provisioning. Conserving diverse plant and arthropod communities in farming systems therefore requires sustainable practices that operate both within fields and across landscapes.
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- Allen-Perkins, Alfonso, et al.
(author)
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CropPol : a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination
- 2022
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In: Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 103:3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 202 crop studies, covering 3,394 field observations, 2,552 yield measurements (i.e. berry weight, number of fruits and kg per hectare, among others), and 47,752 insect records from 48 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (32 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (34.22% counts), bumblebees (19.19%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.18%), other wild bees (13.13%), beetles (10.97%), Syrphidae (4.87%), and Bombyliidae (0.05%). Locations comprise 34 countries distributed among Europe (76 studies), Northern America (60), Latin America and the Caribbean (29), Asia (20), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). Sampling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001-05 (21 studies), 2006-10 (40), 2011-15 (88), and 2016-20 (50). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date, and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. This data set is released for non-commercial use only. Credits should be given to this paper (i.e., proper citation), and the products generated with this database should be shared under the same license terms (CC BY-NC-SA). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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| 4. |
- Kennedy, Christina M., et al.
(author)
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A global quantitative synthesis of local and landscape effects on wild bee pollinators in agroecosystems
- 2013
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In: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; 16:5, s. 584-599
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Bees provide essential pollination services that are potentially affected both by local farm management and the surrounding landscape. To better understand these different factors, we modelled the relative effects of landscape composition (nesting and floral resources within foraging distances), landscape configuration (patch shape, interpatch connectivity and habitat aggregation) and farm management (organic vs. conventional and local-scale field diversity), and their interactions, on wild bee abundance and richness for 39 crop systems globally. Bee abundance and richness were higher in diversified and organic fields and in landscapes comprising more high-quality habitats; bee richness on conventional fields with low diversity benefited most from high-quality surrounding land cover. Landscape configuration effects were weak. Bee responses varied slightly by biome. Our synthesis reveals that pollinator persistence will depend on both the maintenance of high-quality habitats around farms and on local management practices that may offset impacts of intensive monoculture agriculture.
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| 5. |
- Krzeminska, U., et al.
(author)
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Population mitogenomics provides insights into evolutionary history, source of invasions and diversifying selection in the House Crow (Corvus splendens)
- 2018
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In: Heredity. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0018-067X .- 1365-2540. ; 120:4, s. 296-309
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The House Crow (Corvus splendens) is a useful study system for investigating the genetic basis of adaptations underpinning successful range expansion. The species originates from the Indian subcontinent, but has successfully spread through a variety of thermal environments across Asia, Africa and Europe. Here, population mitogenomics was used to investigate the colonisation history and to test for signals of molecular selection on the mitochondrial genome. We sequenced the mitogenomes of 89 House Crows spanning four native and five invasive populations. A Bayesian dated phylogeny, based on the 13 mitochondrial protein-coding genes, supports a mid-Pleistocene (similar to 630,000 years ago) divergence between the most distant genetic lineages. Phylogeographic patterns suggest that northern South Asia is the likely centre of origin for the species. Codon-based analyses of selection and assessments of changes in amino acid properties provide evidence of positive selection on the ND2 and ND5 genes against a background of purifying selection across the mitogenome. Protein homology modelling suggests that four amino acid substitutions inferred to be under positive selection may modulate coupling efficiency and proton translocation mediated by OXPHOS complex I. The identified substitutions are found within native House Crow lineages and ecological niche modelling predicts suitable climatic areas for the establishment of crow populations within the invasive range. Mitogenomic patterns in the invasive range of the species are more strongly associated with introduction history than climate. We speculate that invasions of the House Crow have been facilitated by standing genetic variation that accumulated due to diversifying selection within the native range.
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- Scott, C. E., et al.
(author)
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Impact on short-lived climate forcers increases projected warming due to deforestation
- 2018
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In: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 9:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The climate impact of deforestation depends on the relative strength of several biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects. In addition to affecting the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2) and moisture with the atmosphere and surface albedo, vegetation emits biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) that alter the formation of short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), which include aerosol, ozone and methane. Here we show that a scenario of complete global deforestation results in a net positive radiative forcing (RF; 0.12 W m-2) from SLCFs, with the negative RF from decreases in ozone and methane concentrations partially offsetting the positive aerosol RF. Combining RFs due to CO2, surface albedo and SLCFs suggests that global deforestation could cause 0.8 K warming after 100 years, with SLCFs contributing 8% of the effect. However, deforestation as projected by the RCP8.5 scenario leads to zero net RF from SLCF, primarily due to nonlinearities in the aerosol indirect effect.
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| 7. |
- Wilson, R., et al.
(author)
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Reconstructing Holocene climate from tree rings : The potential for a long chronology from the Scottish Highlands
- 2012
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In: The Holocene. - : SAGE Publications. - 0959-6836 .- 1477-0911. ; 22:1, s. 3-11
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Despite promising research in the 1980s showing the potential of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) for the reconstruction of past summer temperatures in the Scottish Highlands, little dendroclimatic work has been attempted in this region since. This reflects, in part, the limited number of sparsely distributed remnant natural/ semi-natural pine woodlands in the Scottish Highlands and the lack of old growth forest therein. On average, most of the pine trees dated in this region are around 225 years in age. Here, we present the first results of an ongoing interdisciplinary initiative to develop a long Scottish chronology through the acquisition of modern, historical and subfossil pine material from the native pinewoods, historic structures and lakes of the Scottish Highlands. Radiocarbon dating of 25 subfossil pine timbers recovered from lake sediments identified the presence of preserved material covering the last 8000 years with initial clusters focused on the last two millennia and early-mid Holocene. Although developing a well-replicated 8000 year pine chronology will take many years, this preliminary study indicates that a millennial length pine chronology from the northwest Cairngorm region is a feasible and realistic objective in the near future. The importance of such a record in this climatically important sector of northwest Europe cannot be underestimated.
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