Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment最新文献

{"title":"Increased bird diversity around small-scale solar energy plants in agricultural landscape","authors":"Artur Golawski ,&nbsp;Cezary Mitrus ,&nbsp;Łukasz Jankowiak","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109361","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109361","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The increasing demand for energy, coupled with the imperative to curtail the combustion of natural raw materials and mitigate global warming, necessitates the exploitation of alternative energy sources. Renewable energy sources include solar energy plants (PV), however research on the effects of utility-scale plants on fauna has been limited. Most studies have focused on extensive PV in natural habitats like savanna or deserts, so these studies are not directly applicable to European contexts where many PV are placed in farmland. Our study involved an analysis of avifauna diversity within PV and the impact of these plants on more common bird species in farmland in Poland. We conducted surveys at 43 PV with an area not exceeding 5.3 ha and 43 control sites, finding that PV generally enhanced avifauna diversity. Notably, the Corn Bunting (<em>Emberiza calandra</em>) and Whinchat (<em>Saxicola rubetra</em>) occurred in significantly bigger numbers on PV. Conversely, only the Skylark (<em>Alauda arvensis</em>) exhibited a significant negative reaction to the presence of PV. The PV probably provide safe breeding sites, grassy areas that are mown late in the season or left unmown, and fences that serve as observation points, foraging sites, and singing perches for birds. Our results are specific to relatively small, isolated PV that are typical in Poland and central Europe; further research is warranted to assess the impact of larger PV on avian populations and on particular aspects of bird life traits as well as presence and density.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109361"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142560960","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 microbial network complexity predicts soil multifunctionality better than soil microbial diversity during grassland-farmland-shrubland conversion on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau","authors":"Yuanming Xiao ,&nbsp;Juan Wang ,&nbsp;Bo Wang ,&nbsp;Bo Fan ,&nbsp;Guoying Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109356","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109356","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Land-use changes have widespread impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. However, few studies have focused on the responses of soil environmental factors, soil microbial properties, and links between primary productivity, soil microbes, and soil multifunctionality during land-use change in the ecologically sensitive alpine areas on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. In this study, we evaluated the effects of land-use changes from alpine grassland to farmland to shrubland on soil factors and soil microbial characteristics and investigated the associations between aboveground biomass, soil microbial diversity, network complexity, and soil multifunctionality in the Qinghai Lake Basin. The results showed that soil environmental factors and microbial community composition exhibited patterns of gradual recovery toward natural grassland along with the conversion of farmland to shrubland, and soil phosphorus content played a regulatory role in soil microbial restoration along with the conversion of land-use. Furthermore, we found that the recovery of soil microbial co-occurrence network complexity would require a longer time than that of microbial community composition and functional taxa after the conversion of farmland to shrubland. Importantly, we showed that network complexity is an important microbial property mediating the association between primary productivity and soil multifunctionality during land-use changes. These findings address the gap in our understanding of farmland during land-use change surrounding saltwater lake habitats, with great significance for broadening our understanding of land-use change and promoting the development of restoration decisions for alpine ecosystems worldwide.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109356"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142560961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Field assessment of sequential herbicide mixtures on nitrogen cycle-related functions in soybean production","authors":"I. García Carriquiry ,&nbsp;V. Silva ,&nbsp;P. Inchausti ,&nbsp;T. Trasante ,&nbsp;S. Niell ,&nbsp;G. Azziz ,&nbsp;A. Berro Pizzarossa ,&nbsp;W. Saracho ,&nbsp;G. Fernandez ,&nbsp;V. Geissen","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109339","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109339","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Herbicide applications worldwide generally intend to protect crop yields from weed interference while avoiding mechanical disturbance in the topsoil layer. Their intensive use often leads to cocktails of chemicals in soils, which may interfere with natural soil functions, and productivity. The effects of a sequence of herbicides typically used in soybean crops were tested on different endpoints related to the nitrogen cycle. The field experiment was repeated in 2020–2021 and 2021–2022, from fallow to harvest time of the soybean crop. The treatments were: a control without herbicides, a sequence of three herbicide applications at the label recommended rate, all the six possible combinations of the three herbicide applications, and a treatment with the typical, complete scheme but at twice the recommended rate. The first application was a mixture of glyphosate, dicamba, and clethodim; the second was a mixture of glyphosate, S-metolachlor, and flumioxazin, and the third herbicide application moment included fomesafen only. All the treatments remained weed-free, either by herbicides or manual removal. Significant negative effects were detected for nodulation in some treatments at the vegetative stage compared to the control, but no dose-dependent response was observed. Plant biomass and nodulation were not significantly related to herbicide mixtures at the reproductive stage, nor was the soybean yield at harvest time. These results engender a complex scenario for farmers to fully grasp the potential risks associated with the use of herbicides. However, potential nitrification was affected after the third herbicide application moment in the first year of the experiment, in all the treatments exposed to at least one herbicide application, while the abundance of ammonia oxidizers showed no effects. This comprehensive field assessment is relevant to evaluate herbicide environmental risks, accounting for plant-microbiome interactions under real pedo-climatic conditions and stress factors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109339"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142553695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Emissions of N2O following field incorporation of leguminous and non-leguminous cover crops","authors":"Maria Skovgaard Andersen,&nbsp;Tine Engedal,&nbsp;Sander Bruun,&nbsp;Lars Stoumann Jensen,&nbsp;Veronika Hansen","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109335","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109335","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Cover crop (CC) cultivation can reduce N leaching from agricultural fields. It has also recently been proposed as a measure to mitigate climate change due to its potential for increasing soil carbon (C) stocks and reducing soil nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions during CC growth. However, the input of immature, low C/N ratio plant material to the soil can increase the risk of N₂O emission upon CC termination. In a field trial under humid temperate conditions, N₂O emissions from two leguminous CC species – hairy vetch (<em>Vicia villosa</em>) and crimson clover (<em>Trifolium incarnatum</em>) – and from two non-leguminous CC species – oilseed radish (<em>Raphanus sativus</em>) and winter rye (<em>Secale cereale</em>) – were measured in the spring from 24 days before to 54 days after incorporation. The vetch had a significantly higher shoot N concentration and consequently lower C/N ratio than the other three species, but this did not increase N₂O emissions relative to the fallow control. Indeed, oilseed radish was the only cover crop to significantly increase N₂O emissions by 290 g N₂O-N ha⁻¹ during the measurement period relative to the fallow control. These results suggest that factors other than the shoot C/N ratio, such as total biomass, N content or other biochemical parameters may be of greater importance for predicting N₂O emissions from immature cover crop residues.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109335"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142554178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effect of alternative agricultural practices on soil biodiversity of bacteria, fungi, nematodes and earthworms: A review","authors":"Felipe Cozim-Melges ,&nbsp;Raimon Ripoll-Bosch ,&nbsp;Philipp Oggiano ,&nbsp;Hannah H.E. van Zanten ,&nbsp;Wim H. van der Putten ,&nbsp;G.F. (Ciska) Veen","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109329","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109329","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Life in soil is a key driver of important ecosystem processes, such as the recycling of carbon and nutrients. In current intensive agricultural soils, however, richness and abundance of many groups of soil organisms are often reduced, which may threaten soil health and sustainable agriculture in the long run. Therefore, a switch to alternative agricultural practices (e.g., minimal tillage) that are less detrimental or even stimulate soil life has been suggested as a way to increase sustainable food production. Although we understand how some of these practices impact specific species or functional groups in soils, it is necessary to get a more complete overview to understand which practices can be used in agriculture to improve soil biodiversity. Here, we present a systematic literature review identifying which practices are studied as alternatives to current, intensive practices for four soil taxonomic groups encompassing a range of trophic groups and functions in the soil ecosystem: nematodes, earthworms, bacteria and fungi. Further, we review how these alternative practices impact the abundance and diversity of these four taxonomic groups, as well as for the 14 functional groups identified and retrieved from the review. We found that a total of 23 alternative agricultural practices, grouped into 10 groups of practices, were studied for the four target taxonomic groups. Three groups of practices, 'fertilization’, ‘soil cover’ and ‘tillage’ were studied for all taxa. In general, alternative agricultural practices had positive impacts on the species richness in the four taxonomic groups and on the abundance of organisms in the functional groups. However, there were some exceptions. For example, organic fertilizers reduced the abundance of epigeic earthworms, while enhancing the abundance of endogeic and anecic earthworms. There was only one alternative practice, i.e., the use of cover crops, that was neutral to positive for the abundance of all functional groups across all taxa. Our review revealed that there are gaps in the literature, as practices that are commonly studied for aboveground biodiversity, such as field margins or flower strips, are not studied well across taxonomic and functional groups and need to be further studied to improve our understanding of the impact of alternative practices on soil life. We conclude that alternative agricultural practices are promising to enhance soil biodiversity. However, as some practices have specific impacts on taxonomic groups in the soil, we may require careful application and combinations of alternative agricultural practices to stimulate multiple groups.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109329"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142554177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nitrogen and phosphorus supply controls stability of soil organic carbon in alpine meadow of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau","authors":"Xiangli Ma ,&nbsp;Wenming Ma ,&nbsp;Changting Wang ,&nbsp;Yue Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109336","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109336","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Anthropogenic activities have significantly increased soil nutrient availability, thereby influencing ecosystem processes and functions, particularly in nutrient-limited ecosystems like alpine grasslands. Despite substantial efforts dedicated to comprehending the responses of plant productivity and community composition to nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) addition, our understanding of the effects of nutrient additions on soil organic carbon (SOC) remains limited. Here, we implemented a 12-year manipulative fertilization study with three levels (0, 10 and 30 g m^‐2) of N, P, and NP fertilization (N and P fertilization at a ratio of 1:1) in an alpine meadow of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Results showed that N and P additions increased the content of soil organic carbon compared with control. Under the same fertilization conditions, soil organic carbon content increased with the increases of fertilization level, and reached the maximum under N30 treatment (P <em>&lt;</em> 0.05). N and P additions promote the labile carbon (polysaccharide-C and alcohol-C) consumption and the stable carbon (aromatic C and aliphatic-C) enrichment, consequently, it improved the stability of soil organic carbon and facilitated the sequestration of soil organic carbon in alpine meadow. The highest stability of soil organic carbon presented in NP30 treatment compared with others treatments. Indicating that NP addition simultaneously can promote the stability of SOC more. The structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that under the N and P additions treatments, the main factors affecting soil organic carbon stability were soil organic carbon, pH, ratio of carbon and phosphorus (C:P), ratio of carbon and nitrogen (C:N), soil available N:P (AN: AP), available phosphorus (AP), soil available C:N (AC:AN), soil water content (SWC), total nitrogen (TN), available (AN). Overall, nitrogen and phosphorus additions altered soil physicochemical properties as well as the composition of functional groups within soil organic carbon in alpine grasslands, ultimately promoting its accumulation while also impacting both the content and stability of soil organic carbon.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109336"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142554174","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":"Long-term agricultural management reduces abundance and alters community structure of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae)","authors":"Cynthia M. Fiser ,&nbsp;Nathan L. Haan ,&nbsp;Douglas A. Landis","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109337","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109337","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) are beneficial predators and bioindicators of ground-dwelling arthropod diversity in agricultural landscapes. We studied changes in community composition, activity density, and diversity of carabids in a long-term agroecosystem study spanning 30 years in the US Midwest. We contrasted carabid community metrics measured by pitfall trap sampling in two conservation-oriented treatments in a corn-soybean-wheat rotation. One treatment uses conventional practices but with reduced agrochemical inputs (Reduced Input), while the other has no synthetic inputs (Biologically Based). Since a 1994–95 study on the same site, in 2019 overall carabid activity density had declined a minimum of 58–76 % with the four previously dominant species (all predators) declining 94–98 % and becoming uncommon to rare. In addition, carabid species richness, activity density, and community structure have diverged significantly under the two management regimes. In 2019 sampling, activity density decline in the Biologically Based treatment was mitigated by large increases in the abundance of two granivorous species (<em>Harpalus compar</em> (LeConte) and <em>Harpalus pensylvanicus</em> (DeGeer)). In contrast, carabid activity density in the Reduced Input treatment remained low. After decades of management, the Biologically Based treatment supported greater diversity and activity density of carabids compared to Reduced Input, and community structure shifted from predatory toward granivorous species. This long-term study contributes to the growing literature on insect decline in agricultural landscapes and demonstrates that changes in abundance and species turnover of the carabid communities can occur even under conservation-oriented management regimes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109337"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142554175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Knowledge-based phosphorus input levels control the link between soil microbial diversity and ecosystem functions in paddy fields","authors":"Qiaorong Li ,&nbsp;Yao Liu ,&nbsp;Ning Su ,&nbsp;Chang Tian ,&nbsp;Yuping Zhang ,&nbsp;Lin Tan ,&nbsp;Jianwei Peng ,&nbsp;Xiangmin Rong ,&nbsp;Gongwen Luo","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109352","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109352","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The knowledge-based phosphorus (P) input in farmlands is an approved management practice for enhancing soil P supply and crop production. To maintain crop production and ensure the efficient application of P resources, it is crucial to better understand the impacts of P inputs on agroecosystem production and functional services, as well as their relationships with soil biodiversity. A decade-long field experiment was established to explore the impacts of P fertilizer input levels on the multiple ecosystem functions (ecosystem multifunctionality, EMF) of paddy fields, with particular attention to link between soil biodiversity and the EMF. By integrating 22 single-ecosystem functions, our results suggested that P fertilizer inputs significantly increased the EMF and most single-ecosystem functions, which was related to certain characteristics, including crop productivity, soil carbon and nutrient storage, element cycles, and microbial growth. The soils with different P input levels exhibited different richness of fungi, bacteria and protists, with these diverse responses to the P fertilizer inputs being significantly different across rice three growth stages. Soil bacterial and fungal richness exhibited positive linear relationships with the EMF index and most the single-ecosystem functions during both early and late rice seasons. Among the microbial taxa, fungal richness was the key driver and predictor of the EMF, followed by bacterial richness. In addition, among soil nutrient properties, available P content was the dominant driver and predictor of the EMF, followed by NO₃^--N content. Phosphorus fertilizer input rate significantly influenced the link between soil microbial diversity and the EMF, with the P-input-driven impacts on this relationship being further regulated by soil available P and NO₃^--N contents. By linking the EMF with the species-rich soil microbial diversity, our results would provide in-depth insights into maintaining crop production and P efficient utilization, emphasizing the importance of understanding the co-regulation of fertilizer inputs on agroecosystem production and ecological service trade-off.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109352"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142540151","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":"Crop heterogeneity may not enhance biological control of rice pests in landscapes rich in semi-natural habitats","authors":"Quanfeng Yang ,&nbsp;Coline C. Jaworski ,&nbsp;Zhi Wen ,&nbsp;Nicolas Desneux ,&nbsp;Fang Ouyang ,&nbsp;Xuhuan Dai ,&nbsp;Lijuan Wang ,&nbsp;Jiao Jia ,&nbsp;Hua Zheng","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109354","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109354","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Agricultural landscapes are undergoing profound changes worldwide, including crop homogenization and loss of semi-natural habitats, which may be detrimental to arthropod natural enemies of crop pests, although interactive effects between these drivers remain understudied. We assessed the relative contribution of crop diversity, mean field size and the proportion of semi-natural habitats on the abundance and diversity of rice pests and their arthropod natural enemies (predators versus parasitoids) across four spatial scales (100, 250, 500 and 1000 m) in 17 rice fields in Hainan Island, China. The overall low abundance of pests and natural enemies measured in rice fields could indicate high biological control level. Semi-natural habitats (including some recently restored ones) were largely represented in the studied landscapes (average proportion of 65 %) and may be biodiversity reservoirs. Indeed, decreased mean field size and increased semi-natural habitat proportion promoted rice pests at the largest spatial scale only, possibly by enhancing their mobility and use of alternative resources. Predators’ response was weak and indicated a positive influence of semi-natural habitats (or crop diversity in absence of semi-natural habitats) at small spatial scales. Parasitoid abundance was low, but tended to support the resource concentration hypothesis (reduced by crop diversity and increased by mean field size). Overall, crop heterogeneity favoured pests, but not natural enemies, its two components reduced mean field size and increased crop diversity were somewhat complementary and modulated by the proportion of semi-natural habitats but depended on spatial scale.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109354"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142540152","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":"Microbial inoculant has little effect on greenhouse gas emissions following cover crop incorporation","authors":"Sebastian Rieder ,&nbsp;Franz Conen ,&nbsp;Maike Krauss","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109332","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2024.109332","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A net negative emissions technology is the transformation of CO₂ and its storage in agricultural soils in form of soil organic carbon (SOC). One possibility to increase SOC stocks in agriculture is to grow and incorporate cover crops in the upper soil layer. However, incorporation of fresh plant material can also increase N₂O emissions and thereby reduce the overall greenhouse gas mitigation effect. While the effect of removing plant material is relatively well understood, the effect of different incorporation methods and the inoculation of cover crops with microbial inoculant (MI) is still poorly known. To investigate these effects, we conducted an incubation study and a field trial where a grass-clover cover crop was followed by maize. We measured greenhouse gas emissions (N₂O, CO₂), soil parameters (Nmin, DOC, soil moisture and temperature), soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and maize yield. In the four weeks following cover crop incorporation, shallow rotary tillage induced 30 % higher CO₂ emissions than ploughing and removal of cover crop biomass resulted in significantly lower N₂O and CO₂ emissions as if it was mulched and inoculated with MI. Regarding the whole season, removal of aboveground cover crop biomass reduced N₂O field emissions in tendency by 21 %, whereby the trend in N₂O reduction by adding MI in the field was less pronounced. Total N₂O emissions did not differ between tillage implements used for incorporation. SOC stocks did not change within 0–20 cm within a year. Maize yield was 23 % higher with ploughing than rotary tillage. Overall, the addition of MI during cover crop incorporation might improve the greenhouse gas balance, but potential effects are superimposed too strongly by other management and meteorological factors. Therefore, claims that MI are an option to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture remain weakly substantiated.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"379 ","pages":"Article 109332"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142536150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}