Faculty Opinions recommendation of Ecosystem services of the soil food web after long-term application of agricultural management practices.

Author(s):  
Paul Kardol
2003 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. VandenBygaart ◽  
E. G. Gregorich ◽  
D. A. Angers

To fulfill commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is required to provide verifiable estimates and uncertainties for soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, and for changes in those stocks over time. Estimates and uncertainties for agricultural soils can be derived from long-term studies that have measured differences in SOC between different management practices. We compiled published data from long-term studies in Canada to assess the effect of agricultural management on SOC. A total of 62 studies were compiled, in which the difference in SOC was determined for conversion from native land to cropland, and for different tillage, crop rotation and fertilizer management practices. There was a loss of 24 ± 6% of the SOC after native land was converted to agricultural land. No-till (NT) increased the storage of SOC in western Canada by 2.9 ± 1.3 Mg ha-1; however, in eastern Canada conversion to NT did not increase SOC. In general, the potential to store SOC when NT was adopted decreased with increasing background levels of SOC. Using no-tillage, reducing summer fallow, including hay in rotation with wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), plowing green manures into the soil, and applying N and organic fertilizers were the practices that tended to show the most consistent in creases in SOC storage. By relating treatment SOC levels to those in the control treatments, SOC stock change factors and their levels of uncertainty were derived for use in empirical models, such as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Guidelines model for C stock changes. However, we must be careful when attempting to extrapolate research plot data to farmers’ fields since the history of soil and crop management has a significant influence on existing and future SOC stocks. Key words: C sequestration, tillage, crop rotations, fertilizer, cropping intensity, Canada


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (23) ◽  
pp. 6567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Junior Choruma ◽  
Oghenekaro Nelson Odume

Globally, farmers remain the key ecosystem managers responsible for increasing food production while simultaneously reducing the associated negative environmental impacts. However, research investigating how farmers’ agricultural management practices are influenced by the values they assign to ecosystem services is scarce in South Africa. To address this gap, a survey of farmers’ agricultural management practices and the values they assigned towards ecosystem services was conducted in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Results from the survey show that farmers assign a high value on food provisioning ecosystem services compared to other ecosystem services. Irrigation and fertiliser decisions were mostly based on achieving maximum crop yields or good crop quality. The majority of farmers (86%) indicated a willingness to receive payments for ecosystem services (PES) to manage their farms in a more ecosystems-oriented manner. To encourage farmers to shift from managing ecosystems for single ecosystem services such as food provision to managing ecosystems for multiple ecosystem services, market-oriented plans such as PES may be employed. Effective measures for sustainable intensification of food production will depend on the inclusion of farmers in the development of land management strategies and practices as well as increasing farmers’ awareness and knowledge of the ecosystem services concept.


ael ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 180062 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sindhu Jagadamma ◽  
Michael E. Essington ◽  
Sutie Xu ◽  
Xinhua Yin

2016 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 33-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kardol ◽  
Heather L. Throop ◽  
Jaron Adkins ◽  
Marie-Anne de Graaff

2008 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daofeng Dong ◽  
Yun-Feng Chen ◽  
Yosef Steinberger ◽  
Zhi-Ping Cao

An investigation was conducted in a Shouguang agroecosystem, Shandong Province, Eastern China, in order to determine the long-term (10–15 yr) disturbances of three different agricultural management practices. In this study, the main focus was on free-living soil nematodes, as a tool which will help differentiate between treatments according to their sensitivity to physical, chemical, and biota composition. In this study, three treatments were implemented in each of a total of four investigated sites: greenhouses, conventional farmlands, and fallows. Diversity, maturity (MI) and weight indices were used to assess the nematode community. The results indicated that greenhouses have a lower richness (SR), diversity, modified maturity index (ΣMI), modified maturity index for all nematodes with c-p = 2–5 [ΣMI (2–5)], plant parasite index (PPI), PPI/MI values, and fungi-feeding/bacteria-feeding (F/B) ratio, as well as lower basal index (BI) and channel index (CI) and higher dominance. These results elucidated the difference between the three treatments, where the greenhouses were an enriched disturbed system compared with the other treatments and were dominated by bacterivorous nematodes, the fallows were a relatively infertile and stable system dominated by plant parasites, and the conventional farmlands can be positioned between the above two treatments. Key words: Agricultural management, nematode, disturbance, indices


2021 ◽  
Vol 167 ◽  
pp. 104010
Author(s):  
Yufei Li ◽  
Yunfeng Chen ◽  
Ji Li ◽  
Qinping Sun ◽  
Jijin Li ◽  
...  

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