Ecosystem services from old-fields: Effects of site preparation and harvesting on restoration and productivity of traditional food plants

2020 ◽  
Vol 158 ◽  
pp. 105999
Author(s):  
Eugene P. Law ◽  
Eli Arnow ◽  
Stewart A.W. Diemont
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Site Preparation ◽  
Food Plants ◽  
Old Fields ◽  
Traditional Food

Assessing the impact of land-use change for solar park development in the UK: implications for biodiversity and ecosystem services

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Carvalho ◽  
Alona Armstrong ◽  
Mark Ashby ◽  
Belinda Howell ◽  
Hannah Montag ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Indicator Species ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Food Plants ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
The Impact

<p>According to the latest IPCC report, 70 to 85% of electricity generation worldwide will need to come from renewable sources of energy by 2050 if countries are to meet internationally agreed greenhouse gas emissions targets. In the rush to decarbonise energy supplies to meet such targets, solar parks (SPs) have proliferated around the world, with uncertain implications for the biodiversity and ecosystem service (ES) provision of hosting ecosystems. SPs necessitate significant land-use change that could disproportionately affect the local environment compared to other low-carbon sources.</p><p>In Britain, SPs are commonly built on intensive arable land and managed as grasslands. This offers both risks and opportunities for ecosystem health, yet evidence for assessing ecosystem consequences is scarce. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand how net environmental gains can be integrated into land-use change for solar energy development to address the current biodiversity and climate crises.</p><p>We used vegetation data from over 70 SPs and 50 countryside survey plots (1 km<sup>2</sup>) in England and Wales to assess the effects of land-use change for SPs on plant diversity and ES provision. We assessed ten habitat indicator variables (e.g., species richness, larval food plants, forage grasses, bird food plants) associated to functionally important plant species that have the potential to enhance ecosystem service delivery.</p><p>SPs showed higher diversity of habitat indicator species than arable land and improved grasslands, with vegetation between solar arrays showing higher numbers of species important for ES provision (e.g., N-fixing species important for nutrient cycling) than vegetation under solar panels. Overall, the diversity of habitat indicator species seemed highly dependent on former land-use, showing SPs have the potential to enhance ecosystem services provision if built on degraded agricultural land.</p><p>Developing this understanding will enable optimisation of SP design and management to ensure delivery of ecosystem co-benefits from this growing land-use.</p>

Effects of Site Preparation on Dry Prairie Vegetation in South Florida

1981 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Moore ◽  
Benee F. Swindel
Keyword(s):  
Seedling Establishment ◽  
Site Preparation ◽  
South Florida ◽  
Food Plants ◽  
First Year ◽  
Native Vegetation ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Herbaceous Community ◽  
Prairie Vegetation

Abstract This report assesses changes in native vegetation in a fertilized experiment designed to compare effects of disking versus disking and bedding on Eucalyptus seedling establishment. Fertilization and site preparation eliminated shrubs and substantially altered herbaceous composition and production. Sampling between tree rows indicated that a herbaceous community previously dominated by pineland threeawn was converted by site preparation and fertilization to one dominated by panicums, and herbage was effectively doubled. Bobwhite food plants increased nearly 60-fold, while important cattle forage increased 15-fold. Significant biomass differences were found within tree rows. First year yields were estimated to be 855 pounds per acre in rows disked only, and 115 pounds per acre in rows disked and bedded. The second year showed increases: nearly 40 percent between rows, 63 percent in disked rows, and 200 percent in disked and bedded rows.

scholarly journals Linking Omics and Gene Editing Tools for Rapid Improvement of Traditional Food Plants for Diversified Foods and Sustainable Food Security

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajay Kumar ◽  
Anju T ◽  
Sushil Kumar ◽  
Sushil Satish Chhapekar ◽  
Sajana Sreedharan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Molecular Basis ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Food Plants ◽  
Traditional Food ◽  
Rapid Improvement ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Sustainable Food Production

The indigenous communities across the globe especially in the rural areas consume locally available plants known as Traditional Food Plants (TFPs) for their nutritional and health-related needs. Recent research shows that many of the traditional food plants are highly nutritious as they contain health beneficial metabolites, vitamins, mineral elements and other nutrients. Excessive reliance on the mainstream staple crops has its own disadvantages. TFPs are nowadays considered important crops of the future and can act as supplementary foods for the burgeoning global population. They can also act as emergency foods in times of pandemics and other situations like COVID-19. The current situation necessitates locally available alternative nutritious TFPs for sustainable food production. To increase the cultivation or improve the traits in TFPs, it is essential to understand the molecular basis of the genes that regulate some important traits such as nutritional components and resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses. The integrated use of modern omics and gene editing technologies provide great opportunities to better understand the genetic and molecular basis of superior nutrient content, climate-resilient traits and adaptation to local agroclimatic zones. Recently, realising the importance and benefits of TFPs, scientists have shown interest in the prospection and sequencing of traditional food plants for their improvements, further cultivation and mainstreaming. Integrated omics such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and ionomics are successfully used in plants and have provided a comprehensive understanding of gene-protein-metabolite networks. Combined use of omics and editing tools has led to successful editing of beneficial traits in few TFPs. This suggests that there is ample scope of integrated use of modern omics and editing tools/techniques for improvement of TFPs and their use for sustainable food production. In this article, we highlight the importance, scope and progress towards improvement of TFPs for valuable traits by integrated use of omics and gene editing techniques.

scholarly journals Integrating Omics and Gene Editing Tools for Rapid Improvement of Traditional Food Plants for Diversified and Sustainable Food Security

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (15) ◽  
pp. 8093
Author(s):  
Ajay Kumar ◽  
Thattantavide Anju ◽  
Sushil Kumar ◽  
Sushil Satish Chhapekar ◽  
Sajana Sreedharan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Molecular Basis ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Food Plants ◽  
Traditional Food ◽  
Rapid Improvement ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Sustainable Food Production

Indigenous communities across the globe, especially in rural areas, consume locally available plants known as Traditional Food Plants (TFPs) for their nutritional and health-related needs. Recent research shows that many TFPs are highly nutritious as they contain health beneficial metabolites, vitamins, mineral elements and other nutrients. Excessive reliance on the mainstream staple crops has its own disadvantages. Traditional food plants are nowadays considered important crops of the future and can act as supplementary foods for the burgeoning global population. They can also act as emergency foods in situations such as COVID-19 and in times of other pandemics. The current situation necessitates locally available alternative nutritious TFPs for sustainable food production. To increase the cultivation or improve the traits in TFPs, it is essential to understand the molecular basis of the genes that regulate some important traits such as nutritional components and resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses. The integrated use of modern omics and gene editing technologies provide great opportunities to better understand the genetic and molecular basis of superior nutrient content, climate-resilient traits and adaptation to local agroclimatic zones. Recently, realizing the importance and benefits of TFPs, scientists have shown interest in the prospection and sequencing of TFPs for their improvements, cultivation and mainstreaming. Integrated omics such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and ionomics are successfully used in plants and have provided a comprehensive understanding of gene-protein-metabolite networks. Combined use of omics and editing tools has led to successful editing of beneficial traits in several TFPs. This suggests that there is ample scope for improvement of TFPs for sustainable food production. In this article, we highlight the importance, scope and progress towards improvement of TFPs for valuable traits by integrated use of omics and gene editing techniques.

scholarly journals Trade-offs between multiple ecosystem services in UK and US salt marshes

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kate Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Soil Carbon ◽  
Salt Marshes ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Livestock Grazing ◽  
Food Plants ◽  
Grazing Impacts ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Negative Effect

Salt marshes supply vital ecosystem services (ES), providing material goods and recreation space, regulating natural hazards, and supporting diverse wildlife. However, increases in the utilisation of one ES can lead to reductions or ‘trade-offs’ in others. Because salt marshes are commonly used for grazing livestock, it is important to understand how this grazing impacts the saltmarsh ecosystem, and the consequences for ES supply. This thesis (i) uses a global meta-analysis to investigate the effects of livestock grazing on saltmarsh properties, and finds multiple significant changes to soil, vegetation and fauna properties. The meta-analysis reveals that the response of soil carbon is context dependent – there is no effect in Europe but a reduction in the Americas. (ii) Extensive surveys of soil carbon in grazed and ungrazed US marshes, controlling for key covariates, confirm that grazing trades-off against carbon storage in US marshes. These observational surveys, together with 18-month experimental exclusion of horses from a salt marsh in Georgia, show that grazing also disrupts the plant community in US marshes, but has little effect on resident invertebrates. (iii) Focussing on bees in salt marshes, a three-year study in south Wales, UK shows that grazing trades-off against bee habitat by reducing the flower cover of two key food plants, and that increases in plant diversity with grazing do not compensate for this negative effect. (iv) Spatial analyses of seven saltmarsh ES supplied by an estuary complex in south Wales show that marshes are not achieving their potential as a bee habitat here, due to the predominance of grazing. These analyses also show that the provision of ES by salt marshes is spatially heterogeneous, dependent on management, size and location. As a whole, this thesis adds to the understanding of grazer impacts and ES trade-offs, and supplies crucial data to support evidence-based management of salt marshes.

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