Diversifying agricultural landscapes may mitigate biodiversity declines and improve pest management. Yet landscapes are rarely managed to suppress pests, in part because researchers seldom measure ...key variables related to pest outbreaks and insecticides that drive management decisions. We used a 13‐year government database to analyse landscape effects on European grapevine moth (Lobesia botrana) outbreaks and insecticides across c. 400 Spanish vineyards. At harvest, we found pest outbreaks increased four‐fold in simplified, vineyard‐dominated landscapes compared to complex landscapes in which vineyards are surrounded by semi‐natural habitats. Similarly, insecticide applications doubled in vineyard‐dominated landscapes but declined in vineyards surrounded by shrubland. Importantly, pest population stochasticity would have masked these large effects if numbers of study sites and years were reduced to typical levels in landscape pest‐control studies. Our results suggest increasing landscape complexity may mitigate pest populations and insecticide applications. Habitat conservation represents an economically and environmentally sound approach for achieving sustainable grape production.
Diversifying agricultural landscapes may mitigate biodiversity declines and improve pest management. We used a 13‐year government database to analyse landscape effects on European grapevine moth (Lobesia botrana) outbreaks and insecticides across c. 400 Spanish vineyards. Our results suggest increasing landscape complexity may mitigate pest outbreaks and insecticide applications.
Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 922–932
Many studies in recent years have investigated the relationship between landscape complexity and pests, natural enemies and/or pest control. However, no ...quantitative synthesis of this literature beyond simple vote‐count methods yet exists. We conducted a meta‐analysis of 46 landscape‐level studies, and found that natural enemies have a strong positive response to landscape complexity. Generalist enemies show consistent positive responses to landscape complexity across all scales measured, while specialist enemies respond more strongly to landscape complexity at smaller scales. Generalist enemy response to natural habitat also tends to occur at larger spatial scales than for specialist enemies, suggesting that land management strategies to enhance natural pest control should differ depending on whether the dominant enemies are generalists or specialists. The positive response of natural enemies does not necessarily translate into pest control, since pest abundances show no significant response to landscape complexity. Very few landscape‐scale studies have estimated enemy impact on pest populations, however, limiting our understanding of the effects of landscape on pest control. We suggest focusing future research efforts on measuring population dynamics rather than static counts to better characterise the relationship between landscape complexity and pest control services from natural enemies.
Farms benefit from pest control services provided by nature, but management of these services requires an understanding of how habitat complexity within and around the farm impacts the relationship ...between agricultural pests and their enemies. Using cage experiments, this study measures the effect of habitat complexity across scales on pest suppression of the cabbage aphid
Brevicoryne brassicae
in broccoli. Our results reveal that proportional reduction of pest density increases with complexity both at the landscape scale (measured by natural habitat cover in the 1 km around the farm) and at the local scale (plant diversity). While high local complexity can compensate for low complexity at landscape scales and vice versa, a delay in natural enemy arrival to locally complex sites in simple landscapes may compromise the enemies' ability to provide adequate control. Local complexity in simplified landscapes may only provide adequate top-down pest control in cooler microclimates with relatively low aphid colonization rates. Even so, strong natural enemy function can be overwhelmed by high rates of pest reproduction or colonization from nearby source habitat.
There has been a seismic shift in the center of gravity of scientific writing and thinking about agriculture over the past decades, from a prevailing focus on maximizing yields toward a goal of ...balancing trade‐offs and ensuring the delivery of multiple ecosystem services. Maximizing crop yields often results in a system where most benefits accrue to very few (in the form of profits), alongside irreparable environmental harm to agricultural ecosystems, landscapes, and people. Here, we present evidence that an un‐yielding, which we define as de‐emphasizing the importance of yields alone, is necessary to achieve the goal of a more Food secure, Agrobiodiverse, Regenerative, Equitable and just (FARE) agriculture. Focusing on yields places the emphasis on one particular outcome of agriculture, which is only an intermediate means to the true endpoint of human well‐being. Using yields as a placeholder for this outcome ignores the many other benefits of agriculture that people also care about, like health, livelihoods, and a sense of place. Shifting the emphasis to these multiple benefits rather than merely yields, and to their equitable delivery to all people, we find clear scientific evidence of win‐wins for people and nature through four strategies that foster FARE agriculture: reduced disturbance, systems reintegration, diversity, and justice (in the form of securing rights to land and other resources). Through a broad review of the current state of agriculture, desired futures, and the possible pathways to reach them, we argue that while trade‐offs between some ecosystem services in agriculture are unavoidable, the same need not be true of the end benefits we desire from them.
Maximizing crop yields can lead to irreparable harm. We present evidence that an un‐yielding, defined as de‐emphasizing the importance of maximizing crop yields alone, is needed to achieve the goal of a more Food secure, Agrobiodiverse, Regenerative, Equitable and just (FARE) agriculture. There is scientific evidence of win‐wins for people and nature through four strategies that foster FARE agriculture: reduced disturbance, systems re‐integration, diversity, and justice.
Global modeling of nature's contributions to people Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca; Sharp, Richard P; Weil, Charlotte ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
10/2019, Letnik:
366, Številka:
6462
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The magnitude and pace of global change demand rapid assessment of nature and its contributions to people. We present a fine-scale global modeling of current status and future scenarios for several ...contributions: water quality regulation, coastal risk reduction, and crop pollination. We find that where people's needs for nature are now greatest, nature's ability to meet those needs is declining. Up to 5 billion people face higher water pollution and insufficient pollination for nutrition under future scenarios of land use and climate change, particularly in Africa and South Asia. Hundreds of millions of people face heightened coastal risk across Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas. Continued loss of nature poses severe threats, yet these can be reduced 3- to 10-fold under a sustainable development scenario.
•This is the first quantitative synthesis of the effect of landscape simplification on biological pest control.•We found a consistent negative effect of landscape simplification on the level of pest ...control.•Average pest control was 46% lower in simple landscapes dominated by cultivated land.•Landscape simplification did not affect positive or negative interactions among predators.
Numerous studies show that landscape simplification reduces abundance and diversity of natural enemies in agroecosystems, but its effect on natural pest control remains poorly quantified. Further, natural enemy impacts on pest populations have usually been estimated for a limited number of taxa and have not considered interactions among predator species. In a quantitative synthesis with data collected from several cropping systems in Europe and North America, we analyzed how the level and within-field spatial stability of natural pest control services was related to the simplification of the surrounding landscape. All studies used aphids as a model species and exclusion cages to measure aphid pest control. Landscape simplification was quantified by the proportion of cultivated land within a 1km radius around each plot. We found a consistent negative effect of landscape simplification on the level of natural pest control, despite interactions among enemies. Average level of pest control was 46% lower in homogeneous landscapes dominated by cultivated land, as compared with more complex landscapes. Landscape simplification did not affect the amount of positive or negative interactions among ground-dwelling and vegetation-dwelling predators, or the within-field stability of pest control. Our synthesis demonstrates that agricultural intensification through landscape simplification has negative effects on the level of natural pest control with important implications for management to maintain and enhance ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. Specifically, preserving and restoring semi-natural habitats emerges as a fundamental first step to maintain and enhance pest control services provided by predatory arthropods to agriculture.
Ecologists and farmers often have contrasting perceptions about the value of natural habitat in agricultural production landscapes, which so far has been little acknowledged in ecology and ...conservation. Ecologists and conservationists often appreciate the contribution of natural habitat to biodiversity and potential ecosystem services such as biological pest control, whereas many farmers see habitat remnants as a waste of cropland or source of pests. While natural habitat has been shown to increase pest control in many systems, we here identify five hypotheses for when and why natural habitat can fail to support biological pest control, and illustrate each with case studies from the literature: (1) pest populations have no effective natural enemies in the region, (2) natural habitat is a greater source of pests than natural enemies, (3) crops provide more resources for natural enemies than does natural habitat, (4) natural habitat is insufficient in amount, proximity, composition, or configuration to provide large enough enemy populations needed for pest control, and (5) agricultural practices counteract enemy establishment and biocontrol provided by natural habitat. In conclusion, we show that the relative importance of natural habitat for biocontrol can vary dramatically depending on type of crop, pest, predator, land management, and landscape structure. This variation needs to be considered when designing measures aimed at enhancing biocontrol services through restoring or maintaining natural habitat.
•Natural habitat can fail to enhance biocontrol and may even enhance pests.•Pest populations may have no effective natural enemies in the region.•Cropland may be more important for biocontrol than natural habitat.•Intensive agricultural practices can override benefits from natural habitat.•Multiple mechanisms from local to landscape scales underlie high biocontrol variation.
Managing ecosystem services in the context of global sustainability policies requires reliable monitoring mechanisms. While satellite Earth observation offers great promise to support this need, ...significant challenges remain in quantifying connections between ecosystem functions, ecosystem services, and human well-being benefits. Here, we provide a framework showing how Earth observation together with socioeconomic information and model-based analysis can support assessments of ecosystem service supply, demand, and benefit, and illustrate this for three services. We argue that the full potential of Earth observation is not yet realized in ecosystem service studies. To provide guidance for priority setting and to spur research in this area, we propose five priorities to advance the capabilities of Earth observation-based monitoring of ecosystem services.
We are at a critical juncture in international decision-making about how to reconcile the growing human demands for natural resources with the long-term insurance of ecosystem service provisioning.
The full potential of satellite Earth observation is not yet realized in ecosystem service studies, but it offers great promise to support monitoring mechanisms in the context of global sustainability policies.
We provide a framework showing how Earth observation together with socio-economic information and model-based analysis can support assessments of ecosystem service supply, demand, and benefit, and illustrate this for three services.
Joint work among social scientists, ecologists, and remote-sensing specialists is needed to operationalize and implement the recommendations we give here and to address important gaps in current knowledge.
The central challenge of the 21st century is to develop economic, social, and governance systems capable of ending poverty and achieving sustainable levels of population and consumption while ...securing the life-support systems underpinning current and future human well-being. Essential to meeting this challenge is the incorporation of natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides into decision-making. We explore progress and crucial gaps at this frontier, reflecting upon the 10 y since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. We focus on three key dimensions of progress and ongoing challenges: raising awareness of the interdependence of ecosystems and human well-being, advancing the fundamental interdisciplinary science of ecosystem services, and implementing this science in decisions to restore natural capital and use it sustainably. Awareness of human dependence on nature is at an all-time high, the science of ecosystem services is rapidly advancing, and talk of natural capital is now common from governments to corporate boardrooms. However, successful implementation is still in early stages. We explore why ecosystem service information has yet to fundamentally change decision-making and suggest a path forward that emphasizes: (i) developing solid evidence linking decisions to impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services, and then to human well-being; (ii) working closely with leaders in government, business, and civil society to develop the knowledge, tools, and practices necessary to integrate natural capital and ecosystem services into everyday decision-making; and (iii) reforming institutions to change policy and practices to better align private short-term goals with societal long-term goals.
Palm oil, the most widely used vegetable oil, is one of the largest drivers of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from global land use and land cover change. Here, we provide fine-resolution ...(100 m × 100 m) estimates of GHG footprints of current (2015) and potential future scenarios (2030) of crude palm oil (CPO) production in Indonesia. The current estimated average GHG footprint excluding production on Java is 5.7 t CO2 eq t−1 CPO; ranging from 0.7 t CO2 eq t−1 CPO in Hulu Sungai Tengah, Kalimantan to 26.0 t CO2 eq t−1 CPO in Pontianak, Kalimantan, and these vast differences are only discernible at fine spatial scales. The future GHG footprint of Indonesian CPO could be reduced by 42% without compromising increased output by limiting expansion to non-forest and non-peat land. Our fine-scale analysis provides a spatial screening approach to inform new oil palm concessions and sourcing decisions, before more cost-intensive patch analysis and carbon stock assessments are conducted.
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•CPO GHG footprint varies spatially by a factor of 35 (0.7–26.0 t CO2 eq t−1 CPO).•Avoiding development on peat and forest reduces the GHG footprint in 2030 by 42%.•Expansion on current concessions increases the average GHG footprint by 25%.•35% of Papua's 2030 footprint is from direct C loss from expansion on concessions.•Forest edge effects are projected to account for 19% of GHG emissions in Papua.
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