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Increases in the size of agricultural fields, the loss of permanent green field edges and other semi-natural habitats have accompanied the intensification of agriculture, and are still ongoing. From a farm economic perspective, an increase in field size increases efficiency mainly due to cost savings. However, recent evidence suggests that increases in field size might lead to the loss of ecosyste

The mutualistic symbiosis between forest trees and ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) is among the most ubiquitous and successful interactions in terrestrial ecosystems. Specific species of EMF are known to colonize specific tree species, benefitting from their carbon source, and in turn, improving their access to soil water and nutrients. EMF also form extensive mycelial networks that can link multiple

The integrated model WORLD and Hubbert's model were used for assessment of future supply for different metals: iron, nickel, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, tantalum, niobium, rhenium, zir- conium, tungsten, cobalt, copper, zinc, lead, aluminium and the technology metals derived from copper ezinc mining (tellurium, selenium, gallium, indium, antimony, bismuth, tin, germanium, selenium). The conne

Research relating to ecosystem services has increased, partly because of drastic declines in biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. However, the mechanistic linkages between land use, biodiversity and service provision are poorly understood and synthesized. This is particularly true for many ecosystem services provided by mobile organisms such as natural enemies to crop pests. These species are

The properties of iron (Fe) complexes and compounds in the environment influence several central processes, e.g., iron uptake, adsorption/desorption of contaminants and nutrients, and redox transformations, as well as the fate of of natural organic matter (NOM). It is thus important to characterize Fe species in environmental samples. Synchrotron-based extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXA

Pollination contributes to an estimated one third of global food production, through both the improvement of the yield and the quality of crops. Volatile compounds emitted by crop flowers mediate plant-pollinator interactions, but differences between crop varieties are still little explored. We investigated whether the visitation of crop flowers is determined by variety-specific flower volatiles u

The widespread use of artificial nestboxes has led to significant advances in our knowledge of the ecology, behaviour and physiology of cavity nesting birds, especially small passerines Nestboxes have made it easier to perform routine monitoring and experimental manipulation of eggs or nestlings, and also repeatedly to capture, identify and manipulate the parents However, when comparing results ac

Agricultural land use is a major driver of biodiversity losses and changes in ecosystem services. Thus, for the sake of both humans and wild organism per se, effective strategies that enable both agricultural production and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services are urgently needed. Such strategies can be divided into those that reduce the intensity of farming in general (such as orga

Plant-soil feedback is increasingly recognized as a vital framework to analyze multi-trophic interactions involving herbivores, plants and microbes, but research is still lacking on understanding such feedback in the context of global change. In grasslands, patterns of herbivory are expected to be affected by global change, further modifying existing plant-soil feedbacks. We tested this by evaluat

Agroforestry systems, where productive trees are integrated into agricultural land, can deliver benefits to biodiversity, natural pest control, and pollination, but the effects are highly variable. Recent advances in our understanding of flower strips in agricultural systems suggest that the management of the tree row understorey could be an important contributor to this variation. Here, we compar

Microplastics (MPs) are a widespread pollutant in terrestrial ecosystems. However, knowledge on how MPs impact soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition and the priming effect (PE) in rice paddy soil remains limited. By employing a three-source-partitioning approach, we investigated the interactive impact of MP dosage (none, low [0.01% w/w] or high [1% w/w]), labile C (14C-labeled glucose), and 13C-

Restrictions in empirical research of biological communities have limited our understanding of the combined influence of environmental variability and system structure on community composition. Spatial patterns of community composition in less accessible systems, such as marine benthos, can often not be explained by many factors beyond the direct impact of the environment on community members. We

Brazil's Atlantic Forest biome is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, whose heterogeneous ecosystems are threatened by habitat loss and climate change. Palaeoecological research can provide essential context for the impacts of anthropogenic climate change in the 21st Century and beyond, but existing studies have notable limitations in the insights they can provide: vegetation proxy data are

Premise of research. Geochemical fingerprinting of fossil plants is a relatively new research field complementing morphological analyses and providing information for paleoenvironmental interpretations. Ginkgoales contains a single extant species but was diverse through the Mesozoic and is an excellent target for biochemical analyses. Methodology. Cuticles derived from fresh and fallen autumn leav

Karst is a widespread ecosystem with properties that affect the microbial activity and storage and cycling of soil organic carbon. The mechanisms underlying microbial resource availability in karst, which limit the microbial growth and activity in soil aggregates, remain largely unknown. We assessed the microbial resource limitations using exoenzymatic stoichiometry and key extracellular enzyme ac

To maintain food security under global change, we need to consider the stability of ecosystem functioning into the future, particularly in resource production landscapes such as agricultural pasture. With ongoing climate change, extreme climatic events are predicted to become more frequent and severe globally, impacting crop production. The whole process of farming will become more uncertain, from

The uptake of diversified farming systems is constrained by a scarcity of evidence regarding financial costs, benefits, and risks. Here, we evaluate the productivity and projected farm income of an agroforestry system, where apples are integrated with arable crops, by combining primary data with ecosystem service and cost-benefit models. Our ecosystem service assessments included: 1) weed and pest

Tropical tree crops such as cacao and coffee are produced around the tropics in diverse, multistrata agroforests as well as monoculture plantations Box 16.1 and references therein). The smallholders cultivating these systems battle pests and diseases that differ regionally and change over time, but often take a significant part of their yield, and therefore their revenue. In these perennial system