Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment最新文献

{"title":"Seasonality and crop type override the effects of long-term agricultural management on collembolan communities and traits","authors":"Norbert Flórián,&nbsp;Veronika Gergócs-Winkler,&nbsp;Tibor Szili-Kovács,&nbsp;Miklós Dombos","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109810","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109810","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Current agricultural practices, dominated by monocultures and chemical inputs, challenge soil-dwelling mesofauna to adapt to dynamic conditions. We conducted a two-year study within a long-term (50 year) experiment to investigate how monocultures, crop rotations (winter wheat and maize), and fertilisation (organic and mineral) types affect collembolan communities. Based on 360 soil samples, we examined functional and life form traits, as well as taxonomic and functional diversity across seasons. We hypothesised that disturbance-resistant traits would be prevalent in open habitats such as maize fields, while soil-adapted traits would dominate in more closed habitats such as wheat fields and meadows. Our results confirmed these predictions. Maize fields supported dispersal and disturbance-resistant traits but had lower Collembola diversity, whereas wheat fields supported higher diversity and soil-adapted traits, demonstrating that agroecosystems filter functional traits according to crop type and management. Compared to the cropped fields, the control meadow exhibited higher values of traits connected to adaptation to the soil environment and higher species richness. Grouping functional traits into life forms offered clearer ecological insights than examining individual traits alone. Interestingly, soil-adapted traits were more abundant in autumn, following disturbances, rather than during the growing season. This suggests that disturbance-resistant species had already been filtered out, with remaining species primarily inhabiting soil layers under the surface in disturbed areas. Crop rotation, as a form of temporal diversification, favoured dispersal traits, with specific trait patterns influenced by crop type, while fertilisation type had minor effects. Despite long-term exposure to consistent agricultural treatments, plant type and seasonality exerted the strongest influence on Collembola traits and diversity, underscoring the adaptability of these communities to environmental change in agroecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109810"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144262277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Responses of soil nutrients and enzyme activities to afforestation species and age on China’s Loess Plateau: An investigation from soil aggregates aspect","authors":"Dixing Feng ,&nbsp;Yufei Yao ,&nbsp;Jingyun Zhou ,&nbsp;Weibo Kong ,&nbsp;Jianlun Gao ,&nbsp;Qingyin Zhang ,&nbsp;Xiaoxu Jia ,&nbsp;Ming'an Shao ,&nbsp;Xiaorong Wei ,&nbsp;Liping Qiu","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109804","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109804","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Farmland afforestation has long been considered an effective approach to improve soil structure and nutrients cycling. Whereas, how the tree species and afforestation ages affect soil enzymes associated with carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) cycling at aggregate scale has been less examined. In this study, we examined the effects of farmland afforestation with legume trees (Black locust, <em>Robinia pseudoacacia</em>) at three stand ages (10, 20, and 30 years) and with non-legume trees (Chinese pine, <em>Pinus tabulaeformis</em>) at 30 years on soil organic C (SOC), total N (TN), total P (TP) and the C-, N-, and P- acquiring enzyme activities (EEA_C, EEA_N, and EEA_P) in bulk soils and aggregates in the southern part of China’s Loess Plateau. We found that afforestation with black locust significantly increased the proportion of &gt; 2 mm aggregates and mean weight diameter (MWD) across the 10–30 years, whereas afforestation with Chinese pine reduced &gt; 2 mm aggregates and MWD. Farmland afforestation increased SOC and TN, with greater effect occurring at greater ages for legume trees and in &lt; 0.25 mm fraction, but uniformly decreased TP in soil aggregates. Afforestation increased soil enzyme activities, with greater effects on N enzymes for afforestation with non-legume trees at 0–10 cm and greater effects on C and P enzymes for afforestation with legume trees. In addition, EEA_C and EEA_N were highest in &lt; 0.25 mm aggregate fraction, but EEA_P was independent of aggregate size. The enzyme activities in &gt; 2 mm aggregates accounted for 54 %-60 % of the activities in bulk soils. Our results suggest that enzyme activity was determined mainly by the &gt; 2 mm aggregates and was significantly influenced by afforestation species and ages through changing soil nutrients and aggregate size distribution.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109804"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144262276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Metagenomics of soil microbiome uncovers community homogenization in agricultural landscapes in Cerrado","authors":"Lucas D. Vieira ,&nbsp;Juliana Silveira dos Santos ,&nbsp;Erica Hasui ,&nbsp;Marcelino Benvindo-Souza ,&nbsp;Daniela de Melo e Silva ,&nbsp;Rosane Garcia Collevatti","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109807","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109807","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Deforestation and land use intensification have been affecting the soil microbiota community, decreasing taxonomic and functional diversity of soil Archaea and Bacteria, and thus affecting key ecosystem functions. Here, we assess the influence of landscape structure and soil physico-chemical properties on microbiota community (Archaea and Bacteria) in agricultural landscapes in the Cerrado ecoregion. We used a metagenomics approach to obtain the soil microbiome community composition in 32 agricultural landscapes, and piecewise structural equation models to conjointly analyze the effects of landscape structure and soil on taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional alpha diversity. We also analyzed the effects of landscape structure and soil properties on community taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity, using multiple matrix regression with randomization. We found that the number and shape of natural vegetation (NV) areas positively affected taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional soil microbiota alpha diversity. Percentage of pasture and shape of NV had a positive influence on phosphorus content. Percentage of savanna and landscape compositional heterogeneity negatively affected soil organic matter content. However, soil properties had only an indirect effect on the microbiota alpha diversity. Taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity and their components, nestedness and turnover, were very low between soil sites, and positively related to the amount of NV in the landscape and soil chromium concentration. Our results show that rather than decreasing Archaea and Bacteria species richness, intensive agriculture is modifying the community’s structure homogenizing species composition between landscapes, leading to a dominance of groups more adapted to intensive agriculture production systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109807"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144254179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Context dependency and differential arthropod responses belie simple agro-ecological management solutions","authors":"Maura Ganz ,&nbsp;Jaboury Ghazoul ,&nbsp;Philippe Jeanneret","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109771","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109771","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Policies promoting agroecological management aim to counteract the adverse effects of agricultural intensification on biodiversity, and ecosystem health with varying effectiveness. This study evaluates the effects of agroecological management practices and environmental heterogeneity on biodiversity, pest control services, and crop yields in winter wheat, barley, and oilseed rape fields in Switzerland. We assessed plant species diversity, pest and predator populations, and crop yield across 44 agricultural fields managed with either conventional or agroecological practices, including the establishment of wildflower strips (WFS) and reduced pesticide use. Vegetation diversity was higher in agroecological fields compared to conventional fields, but this did not lead to an increase in predator populations. While ground-dwelling beetles are potentially enriched, neither spiders or parasitoids, nor pest abundances were higher in agroecological fields. Pest pressure was not affected by predator abundance, while yields were significantly higher in conventional fields, with the differences attributed to farming practices rather than the influence of vegetation diversity or pest presence. The effect of environmental heterogeneity varies across taxa and depends on the landscape feature considered.</div></div><div><h3>Synthesis and applications</h3><div>Our findings indicate that while agroecological practices can enhance vegetation diversity and support a diverse arthropod community, these benefits do not necessarily lead to improved pest control or increased yields. The variability in responses suggests that the effectiveness of such measures is highly context dependent. Therefore, tailored strategies that consider specific crop and landscape characteristics are needed to optimize pest management and maintain productivity in sustainable farming systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109771"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144242086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rhizosphere abundant bacteria enhance buckwheat yield, while rare taxa regulate soil chemistry under diversified crop rotations","authors":"Huan Luo ,&nbsp;Zhiyong Zhang ,&nbsp;Xiaomei Fang ,&nbsp;Zhen Wang ,&nbsp;Zhuo Liu ,&nbsp;Yuanhao Yang ,&nbsp;Kaile Zhang ,&nbsp;Zelin Yi ,&nbsp;Mengqi Ding","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109781","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109781","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Buckwheat is a fast-growing crop valued for its gluten-free grain, high rutin content, adaptability to suboptimal conditions, and minimal nutrient requirements, making it an ideal candidate for sustainable crop rotation systems. Crop rotations are known to profoundly shape the diversity, composition, and complexity of soil microbial communities, ultimately impacting the functioning and productivity of agroecosystems. While soil abundant and rare microbial communities serve distinct ecological roles, the specific effect of different rotation patterns and buckwheat species on these communities within the rhizosphere and their subsequent roles in agriculture functioning remain largely unknown. To address this gap, we conducted a three-year field trial to assess the relationships among soil properties, rhizosphere bacterial communities, and buckwheat yields under three rotation systems: wheat-buckwheat rotation (R1), continuous mono-buckwheat cropping (R2), and soybean–buckwheat rotation (R3), using both common and tartary buckwheat species. Compared to differences between buckwheat species, rotation systems more significantly influenced the attributes of both abundant and rare communities, soil chemical properties, and soil enzyme activities. Notably, R3 had a higher diversity of abundant taxa, enhanced complexity, cohesion, and robustness of abundant bacterial interactions, and a greater number of abundant biomarkers, relative to the monoculture practice in R2. This likely increased the resilience of abundant taxa in the diversified rotation system to stresses and facilitated belowground ecosystem functions, significantly contributing to higher buckwheat yield. In contrast, while R3 also increased diversity of rare taxa and altered their communities, these changes primarily affected soil chemical properties through modulating soil enzyme activities. These findings suggest that the attributes of abundant and rare taxa in the buckwheat rhizosphere, when intensified by the diversified rotation system, played distinct roles in different facets of agroecosystem functioning. Overall, our study highlights the importance of diversifying rotational diversity to bolster agricultural sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144238302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of litter removal on grazing excluded grassland: A 5-year test with contrasting exclusion durations and topographic conditions","authors":"Lingcao Hou ,&nbsp;Weibo Kong ,&nbsp;Xinpeng Tong ,&nbsp;Jian Liu ,&nbsp;Wei Li ,&nbsp;Mingan Shao ,&nbsp;Xiang Wang ,&nbsp;Xiaorong Wei","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109806","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109806","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Litter removal is an important practice for the management of restored grasslands, while its effects on soils and plant communities remain unclear, mainly due to the variations with time and topographical conditions. To fill this knowledge gap, we compared the effects of litter removal on soils (moisture and net nitrogen mineralization) and plant communities (aboveground biomass, species diversity and temporal stability of the community and five functional groups) in different topographical scales (slope aspect and position) in the 10-year and 35-year grazing exclusion grasslands with a 5-year litter removal experiment. We found that soil moisture and net nitrogen mineralization, and plant community productivity were consistently lower in plots without litter in both 10-year and 35-year grazing exclusion grasslands than those in plots with litter. Litter removal significantly increased species diversity but decreased the temporal stability of community biomass in the 35-year grazing exclusion grassland, but not in the 10-year grazing exclusion grassland. The effects of litter removal on soil environments and plant communities varied with topographical conditions. Moreover, the temporal stability of community biomass after litter removal was largely determined by changes of the functional group asynchrony in the 10-year grazing exclusion grassland, but by functional group stability in the 35-year grazing exclusion grassland. Importantly, nitrogen mineralization mediated the mechanisms by which litter removal affected community stability. Our findings add novel evidence for the importance of litter management in regulating the ecological processes of grazer-excluded rangelands.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109806"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144242084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soil fauna, litter quality and land use as decomposition factors in the Brazilian semi-arid region","authors":"David Gabriel Campos Pereira ,&nbsp;Arley Figueiredo Portugal ,&nbsp;Teresinha Augusta Giustolin ,&nbsp;Victor Martins Maia ,&nbsp;Samy Pimenta ,&nbsp;Michele Xavier Vieira Megda ,&nbsp;Marcos Koiti Kondo","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109803","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109803","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soil fauna mediate litter decomposition in many terrestrial ecosystems, and thus understanding how land use impacts the process has important implications. This study was conducted under semi-arid conditions in Minas Gerais, Brazil, using litterbags arranged in a randomized block design with four replications. The treatments included three land use systems (native forest, maize, and cocoa) and two mesh sizes (0.297 mm for mesofauna access and 4 mm for total soil fauna access), with decomposition assessed at seven-time intervals: 0, 30, 90, 150, 210, 270, and 330 days. Litter decomposition rates and the role of soil fauna were evaluated. Decomposition in natural vegetation was slower than in agricultural systems, despite its higher species richness and Shannon (H′) and Simpson (Es) diversity indices. Agroecosystems exhibited faster decomposition, with perennial crops outperforming conventional crops under unrestricted fauna access (4 mm mesh) and showing similar rates under macrofauna-restricted conditions (0.297 mm mesh). These findings contribute to understanding the interplay between soil fauna, litter decomposition, and land use systems in semi-arid regions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109803"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144242085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparing continuous-corn and soybean-corn rotation cropping systems in the U.S. central Midwest: Trade-offs among crop yield, nutrient losses, and change in soil organic carbon","authors":"Ziyi Li ,&nbsp;Kaiyu Guan ,&nbsp;Wang Zhou ,&nbsp;Bin Peng ,&nbsp;Emerson D. Nafziger ,&nbsp;Robert F. Grant ,&nbsp;Zhenong Jin ,&nbsp;Jinyun Tang ,&nbsp;Andrew J. Margenot ,&nbsp;DoKyoung Lee ,&nbsp;Carl J. Bernacchi ,&nbsp;Evan H. DeLucia ,&nbsp;Ignacio Ciampitti ,&nbsp;Tongxi Hu ,&nbsp;Lexuan Ye ,&nbsp;Jessica Till ,&nbsp;Mengqi Jia","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109739","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109739","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soybean-corn (S-C) is the most common cropping sequence in the U.S. Midwest, known for improving corn yield compared with continuous corn (C-C). However, the underlying mechanisms and impacts on crop productivity, environmental sustainability, and economic returns are not fully understood. Using the agroecosystem model, <em>ecosys,</em> we simulated S-C and C-C systems under different nitrogen (N) fertilizer application rates, demonstrating good performance in capturing N rate-corn yield responses and CO₂ fluxes across 10 Illinois sites. Our analysis revealed: (1) under normal N rates (151 kg N/ha), soybean residues contributed an average of 36% less carbon but 47% more N than corn, resulting in higher early spring soil temperatures and net mineralization in the subsequent corn year, boosting corn yields for S-C relative to C-C. This yield benefit was reduced with higher N rates. (2) S-C reduced soil organic carbon (SOC) relative to C-C due to faster decomposition of soybean residue under normal N rates, but mitigated nitrous oxide (N₂O) and ammonia (NH₃) emissions. Effects on N leaching varied, with reductions during soybean years and increases in the following corn years. N rates shifted the relative differences of SOC and N losses between S-C and C-C. (3) Economically, S-C provided $1133/ha higher returns than C-C at low N rates (50 kg N/ha) under typical market conditions (soybean: $410/Mg, corn: $178/Mg, and N fertilizer: $193/Mg). However, this advantage diminished at higher N rates due to increased costs and smaller corn yield gains, especially under extreme market scenarios with high corn prices and lower soybean-to-corn and fertilizer-to-corn price ratios. These findings highlight trade-offs among crop yield, nutrient losses and soil carbon change by adopting S-C in the U.S. central Midwestern cropping systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109739"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144231327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soil CO2 emissions during the winter–summer crop rotation fallow period: Influence of tillage, nitrogen fertilization, and weed growth in a long-term field trial","authors":"Matteo Francioni ,&nbsp;Paride D’Ottavio ,&nbsp;Marco Bianchini ,&nbsp;Paola Antonia Deligios ,&nbsp;Luigi Ledda ,&nbsp;Chiara Rivosecchi ,&nbsp;Federico Mammarella ,&nbsp;Alessio Giampieri ,&nbsp;Gianluca Brunetti ,&nbsp;Stefano Zenobi ,&nbsp;Marco Fiorentini ,&nbsp;Biagio Di Tella ,&nbsp;Roberto Orsini","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109805","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109805","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soil respiration is a key component of the carbon cycle, yet it remains understudied during fallow periods, particularly in Mediterranean cropping systems where fallows can exceed nine months. As the carbon credit market emerges, accurately quantifying CO₂ emissions year-round has become increasingly important. This study assessed soil respiration and its abiotic and biotic drivers, such as soil temperature and water content, weed biomass and composition, under two different tillage management, long-term conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT), combined with two nitrogen levels (0 and 180 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). Monitoring was conducted during two fallow periods (2022–2023 and 2023–2024) between durum wheat harvest and maize sowing. Soil temperature and water content followed typical Mediterranean trends, with summer heat peaks and higher winter moisture; NT plots had significantly higher average temperatures and winter soil moisture than CT, regardless of fertilization. Soil CO₂ emissions were low and similar across treatments in winter but diverged in warmer seasons. In 2022–23, NT showed significantly higher emissions than CT (up to +65 %), while in 2023–24, only NT0 exceeded CT180 (+48 %). Emissions were positively correlated, although weakly, with temperature and negatively with moisture, especially under NT. Soil cover, dominated by Poaceae, fluctuated seasonally and was consistently greater in NT, with notable differences in species composition. These results emphasize the relevance of fallow-period emissions in carbon budgeting and the potential role of spontaneous vegetation in carbon dynamics. Incorporating such insights into carbon farming frameworks will be essential for improving the accuracy and integrity of climate-related agricultural policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109805"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144231328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ecological processes affecting weed communities in Nova Scotian wild blueberry fields","authors":"A. McKenzie-Gopsill ,&nbsp;S.N. White ,&nbsp;H. Lyu ,&nbsp;S. Hann","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109802","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109802","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ecological gradients and processes are known to play a key role in determining weed community composition in agroecosystems. The present study investigated whether climatic, topographical, and soil edaphic factors were associated with weed species occurrences and abundances in wild blueberry fields. A plant survey of 165 wild blueberry fields in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia was conducted and combined with climatic, topographical, and soil edaphic data collected from Federal databases. Linear mixed models and multivariate analyses were used to disentangle the relationship between weed species occurrences, species-species interactions, and environmental covariates in wild blueberry fields. The surrounding weed species diversity in fields had the strongest association with wild blueberry stem density with increasing species richness driving a decrease in stem density regardless of weed density. Weed diversity was affected by accumulated growing degree days, topographical position index, and topographical wetness index. The occurrence and abundance of many common weed species was positively associated with wild blueberry and accumulated growing degree days. The relative importance of niche-based assembly rules for overall weed species composition in wild blueberry fields, however, was minimal. Yet several species showed high correlation with environmental cofactors. These results stress the importance of local stochasticity and species-species interactions in determining weed communities in wild blueberry fields and the challenge with predicting weed communities in perennial agroecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"393 ","pages":"Article 109802"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144242059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}