•Yield gaps are a specific form of resource-use efficiency gaps focused on land as production factor.•Resource-use efficiency gaps for water and nutrients depend on the system's scale used for ...defining production factors or inputs, and outputs.•The relationships between yield gap and other resource-use efficiency gaps depend on scale.•Closing yield gaps has historically often decreased nutrient-use efficiency but synergy is possible.•Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) defines a trade-enforceable bottom line for yield and efficiency gaps.
Agriculture as a source of food has a substantial spillover that affects the Earth's ecosystems. This results in an ‘ecological footprint’ of food: negative environmental impacts per capita. The footprint depends on the dietary choice of types and amounts of food, on the non-consumed part of product flows and its fate (‘waste’ or ‘reused’), on transport and processing along the value chain, on the environmental impacts of production per unit area, and on the area needed per unit product. Yield gaps indicate inefficiency in this last aspect: resource-use efficiency gaps for water and nutrients indicate that environmental impacts per unit area are higher than desirable. Ecological intensification aimed at simultaneously closing these two gaps requires process-level understanding and system-level quantification of current efficiency of the use of land and other production factors at multiple scales (field, farm, landscape, regional and global economy). Contrary to common opinion, yield and efficiency gaps are partially independent in the empirical evidence. Synergy in gap closure is possible in many contexts where efforts are made but are not automatic. With Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), enforceable in world trade to control hidden subsidies, there is scope for incremental improvement towards food systems that are efficient at global, yet sustainable at local, scales.
Projected climate change and rainfall variability will affect soil microbial communities, biogeochemical cycling and agriculture. Nitrogen (N) is the most limiting nutrient in agroecosystems and its ...cycling and availability is highly dependent on microbial driven processes. In agroecosystems, hydrolysis of organic nitrogen (N) is an important step in controlling soil N availability. We analyzed the effect of management (ecological intensive vs. conventional intensive) on N-cycling processes and involved microbial communities under climate change-induced rain regimes. Terrestrial model ecosystems originating from agroecosystems across Europe were subjected to four different rain regimes for 263 days. Using structural equation modelling we identified direct impacts of rain regimes on N-cycling processes, whereas N-related microbial communities were more resistant. In addition to rain regimes, management indirectly affected N-cycling processes via modifications of N-related microbial community composition. Ecological intensive management promoted a beneficial N-related microbial community composition involved in N-cycling processes under climate change-induced rain regimes. Exploratory analyses identified phosphorus-associated litter properties as possible drivers for the observed management effects on N-related microbial community composition. This work provides novel insights into mechanisms controlling agro-ecosystem functioning under climate change.
► Human well-being depends on multiple ecosystem services, many of them being underpinned by biodiversity. ► Biodiversity continues to be lost at an unprecedented rate. ► Decision-makers and ...policy-makers require sound scientific foundation to secure the planet's biodiversity and ecosystem services, while contributing to human well-being and poverty eradication. ► The new DIVERSITAS vision is built around four main research challenges to help guide the global research community towards this foundation.
DIVERSITAS, the international programme on biodiversity science, is releasing a strategic vision presenting scientific challenges for the next decade of research on biodiversity and ecosystem services: “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Science for a Sustainable Planet”. This new vision is a response of the biodiversity and ecosystem services scientific community to the accelerating loss of the components of biodiversity, as well as to changes in the biodiversity science-policy landscape (establishment of a Biodiversity Observing Network—GEO BON, of an Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services—IPBES, of the new Future Earth initiative; and release of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020). This article presents the vision and its core scientific challenges.
Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. Investigating the environment through an ES framework has gained wide acceptance in the international scientific community ...and is applied by policymakers to protect biodiversity and safeguard the sustainability of ecosystems. This approach can enhance the ecological and societal relevance of pre‐market/prospective environmental risk assessments (ERAs) of regulated stressors by: (1) informing the derivation of operational protection goals; (2) enabling the integration of environmental and human health risk assessments; (3) facilitating horizontal integration of policies and regulations; (4) leading to more comprehensive and consistent environmental protection; (5) articulating the utility of, and trade‐offs involved in, environmental decisions; and (6) enhancing the transparency of risk assessment results and the decisions based upon them. Realisation of these advantages will require challenges that impede acceptance of an ES approach to be overcome. Particularly, there is concern that, if biodiversity only matters to the extent that it benefits humans, the intrinsic value of nature is ignored. Moreover, our understanding of linkages among ecological components and the processes that ultimately deliver ES is incomplete, valuing ES is complex, and there is no standard ES lexicon and limited familiarity with the approach. To help overcome these challenges, we encourage: (1) further research to establish biodiversity–ES relationships; (2) the development of approaches that (i) quantitatively translate responses to chemical stressors by organisms and groups of organisms to ES delivery across different spatial and temporal scales, (ii) measure cultural ES and ease their integration into ES valuations, and (iii) appropriately value changes in ES delivery so that trade‐offs among different management options can be assessed; (3) the establishment of a standard ES lexicon; and (4) building capacity in ES science and how to apply ES to ERAs. These development needs should not prevent movement towards implementation of an ES approach in ERAs, as the advantages we perceive of using this approach render it more than worthwhile to tackle those challenges. Society and the environment stand to benefit from this shift in how we conduct the ERA of regulated stressors.
Sampling and analysis or visual examination of soil to assess its status and use potential is widely practiced from plot to national scales. However, the choice of relevant soil attributes and ...interpretation of measurements are not straightforward, because of the complexity and site-specificity of soils, legacy effects of previous land use, and trade-offs between ecosystem services. Here we review soil quality and related concepts, in terms of definition, assessment approaches, and indicator selection and interpretation. We identify the most frequently used soil quality indicators under agricultural land use. We find that explicit evaluation of soil quality with respect to specific soil threats, soil functions and ecosystem services has rarely been implemented, and few approaches provide clear interpretation schemes of measured indicator values. This limits their adoption by land managers as well as policy. We also consider novel indicators that address currently neglected though important soil properties and processes, and we list the crucial steps in the development of a soil quality assessment procedure that is scientifically sound and supports management and policy decisions that account for the multi-functionality of soil. This requires the involvement of the pertinent actors, stakeholders and end-users to a much larger degree than practiced to date.
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•We review soil quality and related concepts in terms of definitions and assessment.•The most common indicators are organic matter, pH, available P and water storage.•Biological/biochemical indicators are under-represented but show great potential.•Soil quality assessment should specify targeted soil threats, functions and ecosystem services.•Increasingly interactive assessment tools must be developed with target users.
•We analysed topsoils from 10 European long-term field experiments.•Reduced tillage and high organic matter input increased labile soil carbon.•POXC and POMC were the most sensitive to tillage and ...organic matter additions.•POXC was highly correlated with chemical, physical and biological soil parameters.•POXC has the potential to be used as a comprehensive soil quality indicator.
Soil quality is defined as the capacity of the soil to perform multiple functions, and can be assessed by measuring soil chemical, physical and biological parameters. Among soil parameters, labile organic carbon is considered to have a primary role in many soil functions related to productivity and environmental resilience. Our study aimed at assessing the suitability of different labile carbon fractions, namely dissolved organic carbon (DOC), hydrophilic DOC (Hy-DOC), permanganate oxidizable carbon (POXC, also referred to as Active Carbon), hot water extractable carbon (HWEC) and particulate organic matter carbon (POMC) as soil quality indicators in agricultural systems. To do so, we tested their sensitivity to two agricultural management factors (tillage and organic matter input) in 10 European long-term field experiments (LTEs), and we assessed the correlation of the different labile carbon fractions with physical, chemical and biological soil quality indicators linked to soil functions. We found that reduced tillage and high organic matter input increase concentrations of labile carbon fractions in soil compared to conventional tillage and low organic matter addition, respectively. POXC and POMC were the most sensitive fractions to both tillage and fertilization across the 10 European LTEs. In addition, POXC was the labile carbon fraction most positively correlated with soil chemical (total organic carbon, total nitrogen, and cation exchange capacity), physical (water stable aggregates, water holding capacity, bulk density) and biological soil quality indicators (microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen, and soil respiration).
We conclude that POXC represents a labile carbon fraction sensitive to soil management and that is the most informative about total soil organic matter, nutrients, soil structure, and microbial pools and activity, parameters commonly used as indicators of various soil functions, such as C sequestration, nutrient cycling, soil structure formation and soil as a habitat for biodiversity. Moreover, POXC measurement is relatively cheap, fast and easy. Therefore, we suggest measuring POXC as the labile carbon fraction in soil quality assessment schemes in addition to other valuable soil quality indicators.
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