Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment最新文献

{"title":"Coupling soil bacterial and fungal community traits to multifunctionality in grassland ecosystem","authors":"Chenxiao Ding ,&nbsp;Yaowei Liu ,&nbsp;Marcela Hernández ,&nbsp;Han Sun ,&nbsp;Shuo Jiao ,&nbsp;Hong Pan ,&nbsp;Tida Ge ,&nbsp;Kankan Zhao ,&nbsp;Qichun Zhang ,&nbsp;Jianming Xu ,&nbsp;Yong Li","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109648","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109648","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding how bacterial and fungal community traits affect ecosystem functions, and thus provide ecosystem services, is becoming increasingly necessary. However, the relationship between microbial community traits and ecosystem multifunctionality, as well as the mechanisms underlying diversity and multifunctionality, remains a topic of concern. Here, we explored the bacterial and fungal communities and linked them with ecosystem multifunctionality (including enzymatic activity and nutrient pool) in continuous grassland ecosystems (desert, typical and meadow). We found a significant and positive correlation between abundance, diversity, network properties of bacteria and fungi and ecosystem multifunctionality. Bacterial and fungal diversities were the most important factor determining the multifunctionality in grassland ecosystems, whereas their abundance becomes more crucial than diversity in desert grasslands, where the abundances were as low as 1.11 × 10⁷ and 3.67 × 10⁶ copies g⁻¹ soil for bacteria and fungi, respectively. The relative contributions of bacteria and fungi on multifunctionality changed along with grassland types, with the relative contributions of fungi increasing from desert (49.5 %) to typical (50 %), and to the meadow grasslands (67.8 %). Moreover, bacterial and fungal assembly processes were mainly determined by stochastic processes, especially in meadow grasslands, and the microbial assembly processes were significantly positively correlated with diversity-multifunctionality relationship (the correlation coefficients between α diversity and multifunctionality relationships). Taken together, our results reveal the importance of bacterial and fungal abundance and diversity in maintaining soil multifunctionality, and provide strong support for the relationship between assembly process and diversity-multifunctionality in grassland ecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"388 ","pages":"Article 109648"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143715211","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":"Invasive plant serves as an important complementary food resource for diverse pollinators in anthropogenic environments at the end of the flowering season","authors":"Petr Heneberg ,&nbsp;Petr Bogusch ,&nbsp;Jakub Černý ,&nbsp;Petr Žáček ,&nbsp;Petr Karlík","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109627","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109627","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><em>Senecio inaequidens</em> is one of Europe’s fastest plant invaders, which forms large flowering stands in various anthropogenic habitats. This plant is nectar- and pollen-rich and flowers from late May until the beginning of winter, thus providing food sources as a competitive advantage for pollinators that adapt to its presence. However, it also poses a threat in the form of the production of pyrrolizidine alkaloids that are contained in the pollen and nectar. We asked the following questions: 1) Is the model invasive species used as a food resource for pollinators? 2) How do the spatio-temporal patterns of invasive species’ integration into plant-pollinator communities affect this system? 3) Do the floral toxins of the invasive model species cause a negative impact on the fitness of pollinators? We provide the first direct evidence that invasive <em>Senecio inaequidens</em> and native <em>Jacobaea vulgaris</em> serve as complementary food resources for a broad spectrum of flower visitors, including hoverflies, honey bees, bumblebees, and solitary bees. Their abundance and species richness are particularly high if the surrounding anthropogenic landscape provides sufficient nesting resources and other complementary food sources. Other plant species outcompete the two <em>Senecioneae</em> spp. during their flowering period. The pollinators switched to and from <em>Senecioneae</em> spp., corresponding to the beginnings or ends of flowering periods of other abundantly present food resources. Feeding larvae of the polylectic <em>Osmia</em> species with pollen enriched with extracts from <em>Senecioneae</em> spp. inflorescences led to significant decreases in metamorphosis success rates but did not affect body dimensions or symmetry. Therefore, the invasive autumn-flowering plant <em>Senecio inaequidens</em> is an important complementary food resource for diverse pollinators in anthropogenic environments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109627"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143704353","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":"Set-aside of grassland field margins enhances buckwheat pollination services in small-holder agricultural landscapes","authors":"Yuta Nagano ,&nbsp;Tomoyuki Yokoi ,&nbsp;Hisatomo Taki ,&nbsp;Tadashi Miyashita","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109628","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109628","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Smallholder agricultural landscapes, which are commonly found in Asian countries, harbor large areas of semi-natural grasslands because of the high density of field margins, which could potentially function as habitats for diverse pollinators. However, its function has not been fully realized owing to intense mowing management in recent years. This study clarified the ecological process by which the set-aside practice in field-margin grasslands enhances buckwheat pollination services. We conducted a field experiment over three years in Japan and investigated insect visitation and seed sets of buckwheat in fields with conventionally mowed and set-aside margins. Insects visiting buckwheat fields were more abundant in fields with set-aside field margins, and seed sets also increased in fields with set-aside margins because of increased insects. This tendency was consistently observed across all years and seasons. Moreover, insects with a broader utilization of wildflowers contributed more to the seed sets. The abundance responses to set-aside practices differed among insect groups. Non-bee insects increased with the set-aside practice, whereas bees did not. Seed sets increased with an increasing abundance of wild bees, hoverflies, and flower chafers, but not with honeybees. Our results indicate a causal link between set-aside grassland field margins and an increase in buckwheat pollination services. In particular, non-bee insects primarily drive the positive effects of set-aside practices on buckwheat pollination. We propose that exploring appropriate management of existing field margins, rather than setting grasslands inside the fields, which can boost pollinators and crop pollination services, is promising in smallholder agricultural landscapes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109628"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143704355","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":"Traditional and industrial approaches to oil palm cultivation alter the biodiversity of ground-dwelling arthropods in Liberia (West Africa)","authors":"Jonathan H. Timperley ,&nbsp;Brogan L. Pett ,&nbsp;Bility Geninyan ,&nbsp;Ari Saputra ,&nbsp;Abraham Vincent ,&nbsp;Romeo Weah ,&nbsp;Benedictus Freeman ,&nbsp;Marshall Guahn ,&nbsp;Peter M. Hadfield ,&nbsp;Morris T. Jah ,&nbsp;Tiecanna Jones ,&nbsp;Rudy H. Widodo ,&nbsp;Cicely A.M. Marshall ,&nbsp;Edgar C. Turner ,&nbsp;Michael D. Pashkevich","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109626","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109626","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Oil palm cultivation is vital to global food security and economically important to farmers. However, the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations has caused large-scale deforestation in the tropics and, consequently, biodiversity loss and changes in ecosystem functioning. Oil palm is primarily cultivated in Southeast Asia, where the ecological impacts of production have been studied extensively. It is also grown in West Africa, using traditional and industrial methods of cultivation. However, in comparison to Southeast Asia, relatively little research on the impacts of oil palm cultivation in West Africa has occurred. Working in the framework of the Sustainable Oil Palm in West Africa (SOPWA) Project (Sinoe County, Liberia), we investigated differences in the biodiversity of ground-dwelling arthropods across rainforest (the regional natural habitat) and oil palm systems cultivated under traditional (called “country palm”) and industrial management. We sampled arthropods with pitfall traps (160 retrieved) across 54 monitoring plots in rainforest, country palm, and industrial oil palm. We found no differences in total arthropod abundance across systems, but we did find changes in arthropod order-level community composition, driven by differences in the relative abundance of Araneae, Collembola, Dermaptera, and Diptera. We conducted focused morphospecies-level analyses on spiders, owing to their key roles as predators within tropical agricultural systems, and to determine if our order-level findings held true at increased taxonomic resolution. Our spider analyses indicated that country palm supported the greatest number of spider individuals and species, and that all systems supported distinct spider assemblages. Our findings have implications for both arthropod conservation and oil palm productivity, owing to the important ecosystem functions (e.g., pest control) that many arthropods provide. Future research should investigate whether changes in on-farm management practices influence arthropod communities – and the ecosystem functions they support – in West Africa.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109626"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143704384","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":"Spatial variability of agricultural soil carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide fluxes: Characterization and recommendations from spatially high-resolution, multi-year dataset","authors":"Nakian Kim ,&nbsp;Chunhwa Jang ,&nbsp;Wendy H. Yang ,&nbsp;Kaiyu Guan ,&nbsp;Evan H. DeLucia ,&nbsp;DoKyoung Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109636","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109636","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mitigating agricultural soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can contribute to meeting the global climate goals. High spatial and temporal resolution, large-scale, and multi-year data are necessary to characterize and predict spatial patterns of soil GHG fluxes to establish well-informed mitigation strategies, but not many of such datasets are currently available. To address this gap in data we collected two years of in-season soil carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) fluxes at high spatial resolution (7.4 sampling points ha⁻¹) from three commercial sites in central Illinois, one conventionally managed continuous corn (2.8 ha in 2021; 5.4 ha in 2022) and two (one site 5.4 ha in 2021 and 2.0 ha in 2022, another site 2.7 ha both years) under conservation practices in corn-soybean rotations. At the field-scale, the spatial variability of CO₂ was comparable across sites, years, and management practices, but N₂O was on average 77 % more spatially variable in the conventionally managed site. Analysis of N₂O hotspots revealed that although they represent a similar proportion of the sampling areas across sites (conventional: 12 %; conservation: 13 %), hotspot contribution to field-wide emission was greater in the conventional site than in the conservation sites (conventional: 51 %; conservation: 34 %). Also, the spatial patterns, especially hotspot locations, of both gases were inter-annually inconsistent, with hotspots rarely occurring in the same location. Overall, our result indicated that traditional field-scale monitoring with gas chambers may not be the optimal approach to detect GHG hotspots in row crop systems, due to the unpredictable spatial heterogeneity of management practices. Meanwhile, sensitivity analysis demonstrated that reliable (&lt; 25 % error) field-scale soil GHG flux estimates are attainable when sampled above certain spatial resolutions (1.6 points ha⁻¹ for CO₂ and 5.6 points ha⁻¹ for N₂O in our dataset). Especially for N₂O, lower spatial resolutions were prone to underestimating its field-wide flux.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109636"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143704352","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":"Long-term land use conversion influence on soil pore structure and organic carbon","authors":"Maoz Dor ,&nbsp;Lichao Fan ,&nbsp;Kazem Zamanian ,&nbsp;Alexandra N. Kravchenko","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109633","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109633","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pore structure plays a crucial role in soil carbon (C) dynamics, influencing physical, biological, and chemical processes that govern C protection or decomposition, yet its impact on C losses and gains during land use changes is not fully understood. We investigated the pore structure using X-ray computed tomography (CT) and characterized soil organic C (SOC) and its chemistry using a “space-for-time” substitution approach across four land use: an uncut deciduous forest, a never-tilled grassland, an early successional community restoring native vegetation on historically cultivated soil, and a conventionally intensively managed agricultural system. Soil of intensive agriculture displayed lower porosity (10–12 %), lower volume of pores in the 30–150 μm range (10–20 %), and reduced SOC content (42–75 %) as compared to those in undisturbed forest and grassland. While restoration of the early successional plant community led to a substantial recovery of the pore structure, with pore characteristics approaching those of undisturbed land uses, its SOC-related measures, including particulate and mineral associated organic C, and microbial biomass C, constituted only ∼50 % of the undisturbed grassland and forest benchmarks. Analysis of functional group chemistry demonstrated that SOC gained in agricultural soil upon establishment of early successional community differs in its chemical composition from that lost during past agricultural land use. By integrating pore structure measurements via CT, C fractionation, and microbial activity data, this study highlights the intricate interplay between soil structure and C dynamics, exploring the influence of the pore structure on ecosystem C processing and storage capacity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109633"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143696202","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 nitrogen deposition on temporal stability and resistance of the alpine steppe plant communities on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau","authors":"Ran Zhang ,&nbsp;Hao Shen ,&nbsp;Shikui Dong ,&nbsp;Qiang Yu ,&nbsp;Bing Zhang ,&nbsp;Jiannan Xiao ,&nbsp;Shuai Li ,&nbsp;Hui Zuo ,&nbsp;Hang Shi ,&nbsp;Fengcai He ,&nbsp;Ke Zhang ,&nbsp;Yuhao Zhang ,&nbsp;Chunhui Ma ,&nbsp;Yongqi Liu ,&nbsp;Xainqi Zhou ,&nbsp;Xueqi Li ,&nbsp;Mingjie Ran","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109629","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109629","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Multidimensional stability is crucial for capturing ecosystem dynamics and maintaining Earth's ecosystem services in response to environmental changes. Recently, nitrogen (N) deposition has increased significantly, particularly in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. However, the impact of N deposition on multidimensional plant community stability remains poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, this study conducted a 5-year N addition experiment in the alpine steppe of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The results revealed that N addition decreased the temporal stability of plant communities and rare species, while simultaneously enhancing the resistance of plant communities, dominant and common species. Noteworthy findings were that temporal stability of rare species and species asynchrony were main predictors for the temporal stability of plant community, while resistance of dominant, common and rare species was an important predictor of plant community resistance. The results suggested that species composition and species asynchrony regulated the stability of alpine steppe plant community under N addition. In light of increasing N deposition in the alpine regions, these findings offer a scientific foundation for conservation management of the alpine steppe ecosystem in the future.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109629"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143685429","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":"Increased nitrogen deposition and airborne particulate matter pollution in the vicinity of intensive animal farms caused by ammonia emissions","authors":"Wuying Yi ,&nbsp;Guoping Liu ,&nbsp;Min Wang ,&nbsp;Juan Wang ,&nbsp;Deli Chen ,&nbsp;Jianlin Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109634","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109634","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Intensive animal farms emit large amounts of ammonia (NH₃) into the atmosphere. NH₃ can cause the formation of NH₄⁺ particles in the atmosphere and their return to the land surface via NH₃/NH₄⁺ deposition, imposing the risks of particulate matter and reactive nitrogen (N_r) pollution. Here, we investigated NH₃ emissions from an intensive dairy farm, atmospheric NH₃/NH₄⁺ deposition, and PM_2.5 concentration in the vicinity of the dairy farm in central South China, with the aim of determining the effects of high NH₃ emissions from dairy farms on atmospheric N deposition and aerosol pollution. NH₃ deposition at a distance of 500 m from the edge of the dairy farm accounted for 10.2 % of annual NH₃ emissions from the dairy farm. The measured annual PM_2.5 concentration at the dairy farm showed 1.8 times higher than that reported at the neighboring city sites, with aerosol NH₄⁺ contributing to a large part of PM_2.5. Total N deposition within 500 m of the dairy farm was as high as 78.4 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ (NH₃/NH₄⁺ deposition accounting for 64.4 %), which was 2.1 times higher than the N deposition in the neighboring region without dairy farms. Our study indicates that intensive animal farms cause high N deposition and severe airborne particulate matter pollution, and it is important to mitigate NH₃ emissions from intensive dairy farms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109634"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143685428","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":"Green manuring with balanced fertilization improves soil ecosystem multifunctionality by enhancing soil quality and enzyme activities in a smooth vetch-maize rotation system","authors":"Long Jia ,&nbsp;Huijuan Zhang ,&nbsp;Jiyu Lu ,&nbsp;Yan Liang ,&nbsp;Yueda Li ,&nbsp;Luyao Xu ,&nbsp;Jiale Ye ,&nbsp;Ruiyun Yang ,&nbsp;Peng Li ,&nbsp;Jiaguo Jiao ,&nbsp;Xia Wang ,&nbsp;Feng Hu","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109632","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109632","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The use of green manure-cereal rotation has been shown to improve soil fertility, reduce land-use intensity, and mitigate adverse environmental effects. However, there have been few studies on the nutrient demands of the green manure itself and the effects of incorporating green manure with fertilizers on the soil quality index (SQI) and ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF). Therefore, this study analyzed soil parameters after different fertilization strategies in a smooth vetch-maize rotation system (i.e., optimized fertilization) based on the annual nutrient equivalence principle. The effects of five fertilization strategies, namely, fallow (CF), no fertilization (CK), nitrogen fertilizer (NF), phosphorus fertilizer (PF), and nitrogen-phosphorus fertilizer (NPF) on the SQI, microbial metabolic limitation, and EMF were evaluated to establish the optimal fertilization strategy for achieving sustainable agricultural development. The results showed that NPF increased the SQI in the smooth vetch-maize rotation system by 64.7–86.9 % compared to CF and by 22.0–48.8 % compared to CK. Fertilization alleviated microbial N limitation in the smooth-vetch phase, while the incorporation of green manure mitigated the microbial carbon (C) limitation in the maize phase. In addition, NF, PF, and NPF improved the soil EMF by 141.2–213.0 %, 124.0–226.7 %, and 199.9–247.4 %, respectively, in the smooth vetch-maize rotation system compared to CK. Notably, the improvement in soil EMF in the maize phase by NFP was 2.20–6.16 times that of PF. Random forest analysis showed that soil organic C, SQI, and the activities of enzymes involved in C and P acquisition were the main drivers of soil EMF. In addition, soil biochemical properties indirectly promoted soil EMF by increasing the activities of enzymes associated with C, N, and P acquisition as well as the SQI. In conclusion, these findings provide important guidance for a sustainable practice of reallocating part of the N and P fertilizer from the maize phase to the green manure phase to enhance soil quality and ecosystem multifunctionality in green manure-crop rotation systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109632"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143685430","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":"Balancing bats and agriculture: Investigating the effects of agricultural management practices on bat species diversity in mountain ecosystems","authors":"Chiara Paniccia ,&nbsp;Morgan Jaslen Scott ,&nbsp;Alex Bellè ,&nbsp;Thomas Marsoner ,&nbsp;Eva Ladurner ,&nbsp;Lisa Angelini ,&nbsp;Florian Reichegger ,&nbsp;Enrico Tomelleri ,&nbsp;Ulrike Tappeiner ,&nbsp;Andreas Hilpold","doi":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109620","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agee.2025.109620","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Changes in agricultural land use and farming practices have been recognized as significant drivers of biodiversity loss, especially when they involve intensive monoculture, excessive pesticide use, overgrazing by livestock, and habitat destruction. These practices not only reduce plant and insect diversity but also impact vertebrates, including bats. We investigated the effect of natural structural elements and intensity of agricultural practices on bat richness and activity across open mountain agricultural areas. The variables considered included the total area of natural structural elements (e.g., hedgerows, trees), the management intensity index, manure hill presence, grazing pressure, and mowing frequency. We recorded bat activity at 47 sites using passive acoustic monitoring, and classified bat species into foraging guilds based on their foraging strategies. We analyzed data using generalized linear mixed models and linear models, respectively, to assess the activity of foraging guilds and species richness in relation to agricultural intensity and landscape variables. We found that natural structural elements positively influenced bat diversity, particularly short-range echolocators and low foragers. Grazing and mowing practices showed mixed impacts on bat diversity, while the presence of manure hills displayed a negative correlation with most bat guilds. This study underscores the need for nuanced approaches to agricultural management that consider the complex effects on bat species diversity. It highlights the importance of maintaining natural structural elements and promoting extensive grazing and mowing practices. These findings contribute to a holistic understanding of how agricultural practices and natural structural elements can alter bat populations’ activity, ultimately affecting the overall biodiversity in mountain agricultural landscapes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7512,"journal":{"name":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment","volume":"387 ","pages":"Article 109620"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143685431","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}