Monitoring agroecological transformation processes induced by climate and agricultural innovations over time and space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heide Spiegel ◽  
Julia Miloczki ◽  
Bernhard Freyer ◽  
Andreas Surböck ◽  
Jürgen K. Friedel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Agricultural Management ◽  
Soil Tillage ◽  
Agroecological Zones ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Agricultural Innovations

<p>Sustainable agricultural production of food, feed, fibre and fuel with limited agricultural land to cover human demands and at the same time to secure natural resources is currently one of the biggest global challenges. Changes in agricultural management to ensure fertile soils, stable yields and product qualities and to avoid adverse environmental impacts, affect various soil and plant characteristics, agrobiodiversity and the micro-climate of agroecosystems.</p><p>Long-term field experiments (LTEs) are indispensable to detect and understand impacts of climate (drought, heat, floods, frost) and agricultural innovations on soils and plants. Amongst agricultural innovations are adaptions of crop rotations to climate change, efficient fertilisation systems with and without livestock, reduced soil tillage intensity, the conversion of a whole landscape section from conventional to organic farming and introducing landscape elements like flowering strips or hegdes that serve, e.g., as habitats for pollinators and beneficials.</p><p>For the evaluation of impacts of climate change and agricultural innovations, researchers of agricultural long-term ecological research (LTER) sites in Austria have developed indicators to enable the systematic comparison of long-term trials impact on soil-plant systems in different agroecological zones of Austria and Europe, respectively, including different agro-ecosystems, e.g., arable land and grassland. Examples for soil indicators include soil characteristics like organic carbon, nutrients and contaminants, biological and physical (e.g., porosity, structure) indicators that have already been measured since many years in various field experiments. Embedded in long-term socio-ecological regions (LTSER), which allow analyzing long-term socio-economic and biophysical drivers of change in agricultural management, these agricultural LTER sites contribute crucial insights into the interaction between nature and society.</p>

scholarly journals Natural and Managed Grasslands Productivity during Multiyear in Ex-Arable Lands (in the Context of Climate Change)

Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Liudmila Tripolskaja ◽  
Asta Kazlauskaite-Jadzevice ◽  
Virgilijus Baliuckas ◽  
Almantas Razukas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Soil Properties ◽  
Dry Matter ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Rainfall Amount ◽  
Rainfall Variation ◽  
Global Issue ◽  
Term Change ◽  
The Impact

Ex-arable land-use change is a global issue with significant implications for climate change and impact for phytocenosis productivity and soil quality. In temperate humid grassland, we examined the impact of climate variability and changes of soil properties on 23 years of grass productivity after conversion of ex-arable soil to abandoned land (AL), unfertilized, and fertilized managed grassland (MGunfert and MGfert, respectively). This study aimed to investigate the changes between phytocenosis dry matter (DM) yield and rainfall amount in May–June and changes of organic carbon (Corg) stocks in soil. It was found that from 1995 to 2019, rainfall in May–June tended to decrease. The more resistant to rainfall variation were plants recovered in AL. The average DM yield of MGfert was 3.0 times higher compared to that in the AL. The DM yields of AL and MG were also influenced by the long-term change of soil properties. Our results showed that Corg sequestration in AL was faster (0.455 Mg ha−1 year−1) than that in MGfert (0.321 Mg ha−1 year−1). These studies will be important in Arenosol for selecting the method for transforming low-productivity arable land into MG.

The Biochar challenge in Mediterranean viticulture: results from 10 years of field experiment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Baronti ◽  
Anita Maienza ◽  
Fabrizio Ungaro ◽  
Antonio,Antonello Montagnoli ◽  
Lorenzo Genesio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Water Relations ◽  
Soil Amendment ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Plant Water ◽  
Grape Quality ◽  
Mediterranean Countries

<p>There are extensive reports and scientific articles in literature on the applicability of biochar as soil amendment in agriculture and on the benefits that this practice can bring in terms of soil improvement and optimization of water resources. The use of biochar as a soil amendment in agriculture is a suitable option that helps to mitigate the effects of climate change. Biochar has an approximate mean residence time in the soil over 1,000 years and this long-term stability is a fundamental prerequisite for considering biochar as a suitable method for carbon sequestration. Unfortunately, most literature provides results based on one-year trials. Not enough for a soil amendment to be able to claim effectiveness for many decades and not enough for a soil treatment to be considered irreversible. An effective option to fill this knowledge gap is represented by long-term field experiments. In this study, we investigated the effect of biochar application on plant water relations and soil properties during 10 years in a field experiment in Central Italy on Vitis vinifera. Biochar was applied at a rate of 22 t ha-1 in two consecutive growing seasons: 2009 and 2010. The results obtained during these years on biochar treatment compared to the control treatment are exciting: we demonstrated an increase in grape production, up to 66%, without a decrease of the grape quality, an increase in plant-soil water relations, no effects on the concentrations of soil PAHs, no eco-toxicity soil effect and a positive effect on soil chemical and biological parameters. Surprisingly, after 10 years the biochar effect continued to demonstrate significant differences among treatments, in particular: a significant increase of soil biological quality, decrease in soil bulk density coupled with a corresponding increase in saturated hydraulic conductivity, an enhance in soil available water content and a significant improvement of plant water status. The modification of plant water availability induced by biochar application increase the resilience of vineyards to droughts, as demonstrated by the lower leaf potential and higher stomatal conductance. This effect has a significant impact on quantity and quality of grape production after 10 years. Moreover, in the long-term perspective the biochar demonstrates to have an effect on soil biological communities that resulted sensitive to biochar with positive increase of abundance of species related to soil moisture content and enhance of biodiversity index. According to these results, the viticulture is now in the position to provide an effective contribution to mitigate climate change and we expect that this will be an example for other Mediterranean countries.</p>

scholarly journals Phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution contribute to advancing flowering phenology in response to climate change

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1743) ◽  
pp. 3843-3852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill T. Anderson ◽  
David W. Inouye ◽  
Amy M. McKinney ◽  
Robert I. Colautti ◽  
Tom Mitchell-Olds
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Adaptive Evolution ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Flowering Phenology ◽  
Directional Selection ◽  
Major Life ◽  
Quantitative Genetic ◽  
Evolutionary Response

Anthropogenic climate change has already altered the timing of major life-history transitions, such as the initiation of reproduction. Both phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution can underlie rapid phenological shifts in response to climate change, but their relative contributions are poorly understood. Here, we combine a continuous 38 year field survey with quantitative genetic field experiments to assess adaptation in the context of climate change. We focused on Boechera stricta (Brassicaeae), a mustard native to the US Rocky Mountains. Flowering phenology advanced significantly from 1973 to 2011, and was strongly associated with warmer temperatures and earlier snowmelt dates. Strong directional selection favoured earlier flowering in contemporary environments (2010–2011). Climate change could drive this directional selection, and promote even earlier flowering as temperatures continue to increase. Our quantitative genetic analyses predict a response to selection of 0.2 to 0.5 days acceleration in flowering per generation, which could account for more than 20 per cent of the phenological change observed in the long-term dataset. However, the strength of directional selection and the predicted evolutionary response are likely much greater now than even 30 years ago because of rapidly changing climatic conditions. We predict that adaptation will likely be necessary for long-term in situ persistence in the context of climate change.

scholarly journals Temporally Generalizable Land Cover Classification: A Recurrent Convolutional Neural Network Unveils Major Coastal Change through Time

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 3953
Author(s):  
Patrick Clifton Gray ◽  
Diego F. Chamorro ◽  
Justin T. Ridge ◽  
Hannah Rae Kerner ◽  
Emily A. Ury ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Convolutional Neural Network ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Validation Data

The ability to accurately classify land cover in periods before appropriate training and validation data exist is a critical step towards understanding subtle long-term impacts of climate change. These trends cannot be properly understood and distinguished from individual disturbance events or decadal cycles using only a decade or less of data. Understanding these long-term changes in low lying coastal areas, home to a huge proportion of the global population, is of particular importance. Relatively simple deep learning models that extract representative spatiotemporal patterns can lead to major improvements in temporal generalizability. To provide insight into major changes in low lying coastal areas, our study (1) developed a recurrent convolutional neural network that incorporates spectral, spatial, and temporal contexts for predicting land cover class, (2) evaluated this model across time and space and compared this model to conventional Random Forest and Support Vector Machine methods as well as other deep learning approaches, and (3) applied this model to classify land cover across 20 years of Landsat 5 data in the low-lying coastal plain of North Carolina, USA. We observed striking changes related to sea level rise that support evidence on a smaller scale of agricultural land and forests transitioning into wetlands and “ghost forests”. This work demonstrates that recurrent convolutional neural networks should be considered when a model is needed that can generalize across time and that they can help uncover important trends necessary for understanding and responding to climate change in vulnerable coastal regions.

scholarly journals ECOLOGICALLY ORIENTED AGRICULTURE IN UKRAINE: OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS OF DEVELOPMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-157
Author(s):  
O. Shubravska ◽  
K. Prokopenko ◽  
L. Udova
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Population Expansion ◽  
Resource Saving ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Sectoral Structure ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Competitive Products ◽  
Sustainable Productivity

The structure of agriculture is increasingly corrected by the need to adapt production to increase the intensity of climate change that leads to building a new concept of resource-saving agriculture, determining the optimal sectoral structure of production and indicators for assessing the implication of adaptation technologies implementation. The aim of the study is to develop the concept of ecological resource-saving agriculture, which will ensure: preservation and reproduction of agricultural land fertility as a decisive factor in food security in the long term; improvement of food quality for the population; expansion of the export potential of agro-food products at the expense of the segment of high-quality, demanded and, therefore, competitive products. An assessment of the consequences of climate change for the industry and possible results of its adaptation suggests that the use of environmentally balanced agricultural systems will ensure adaptation of the industry to climate change on the basis of widespread introduction of innovative technologies that will promote the conservation and restoration of soil fertility, moisture conservation, reduction of production cost through minimization the cost of material resources. As the result, the sustainable productivity, profit increase and food safety while maintaining the resources and the environment will be achieved.

scholarly journals SURFACE MELT WATER RUNOFF ON THE ARABLE LANDS OF THE LOWER DON

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. P. Sidarenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Water Runoff ◽  
Erosion Processes ◽  
Rostov Region ◽  
Melt Water ◽  
Runoff Rate ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Term Data

Purpose: to study the indicators of melt water runoff from arable land of various compaction and to assess its quantitative and qualitative characteristics based on long-term data. Materials and methods. Studies of the intensity of melt water runoff were carried out in the Azov zone of Rostov region in the period 1964–2018 by a number of researchers, including the author of the article. Results. The runoff indicators for a 55-year period are characterized by significant fluctuations. Analysis of long-term data revealed that the indicator of melt water runoff rate from loose arable land for the period 1964–2018 averaged 9.0 mm/year and on compacted arable land averaged 17.5 mm/year. On loose arable land, the maximum runoff rate for a 55-year period is 25.3 mm, on compacted arable land it is 47.3 mm. As a result of the analysis of the data, it was revealed that the average water reserve in snow on the surface of the fall-plowed land is 43.7 mm, and 48.7 mm on the winter wheat sowing. In general, for two agrophonies, the runoff indicator for the period 1964–2018 was most often characterized as weak and very weak only on loose arable land. Calculations of statistical indicators of runoff data revealed that they are not uniform, for example, the coefficient of runoff variation from loose arable land was 115.4 %, and from compacted arable land 70.4 %, with a coefficient of variation above 33 %, the aggregate is considered heterogeneous. Rostov region, having a large agricultural potential, is experiencing significant problems from the impact of negative natural processes, among which one of the first places belongs to erosion processes. Conclusions. In the course of generalization of long-term data on melt water runoff from arable land of varying degrees of compaction, indicators that made it possible to plot the flow availability curves were obtained. The use of the results obtained makes it possible to predict the occurrence of runoff of various intensities and thereby prevent its negative impact on agricultural land with the minimal material costs.

scholarly journals Effect of different straw management practices on yields of continuous spring barely

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (No. 1) ◽  
pp. 27-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Procházková ◽  
J. Málek ◽  
J. Dovrtěl
Keyword(s):  
Management Practices ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Conventional Tillage ◽  
Soil Tillage ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Straw Management ◽  
Straw Burning ◽  
Straw Incorporation ◽  
Yield Trends

Field experiments were conducted in the maize-growing region on heavy gleic fluvisol from 1974 to 2000. Three variants of straw management (straw harvested, incorporated into soil and burned), two variants of soil tillage (conventional plough tillage to 0.22 m, shallow disc tillage to 0.12&ndash;0.15 m) and three variants of fertilization (30, 60 and 90 kg N.ha<sup>&ndash;1</sup>) were studied. After conventional tillage, the highest yield was obtained in the variant with burned straw (5.50 t.ha<sup>&ndash;1</sup>), followed by the variant with straw incorporated into soil (5.40 t.ha<sup>&ndash;1</sup>) and the lowest after harvested straw (5.01 t.ha<sup>&ndash;1</sup>). At shallow tillage, lower yields were assessed in all variants of straw management in comparison with conventional tillage (after straw burning 5.07 t.ha<sup>&ndash;1</sup>, incorporation into soil 4.66 t.ha<sup>&ndash;1</sup> and harvest 4.54 t.ha<sup>&ndash;1</sup>). The ranking of variants was identical to that in inversion tillage; however, the yield increased more after straw burning in comparison with its incorporation into soil. Yields increased regularly along with increasing rates of nitrogen. If long-term effects of straw incorporation on yields and yield trends were evaluated (in comparison with straw harvest), statistically significant decrease in yields was assessed after shallow in contrast with increase in yields after deeper straw incorporation.

scholarly journals Historical Arable Land Change in an Eco-Fragile Area: A Case Study in Zhenlai County, Northeastern China

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanyuan Yang ◽  
Shuwen Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Agricultural Activity ◽  
Reconstruction Method ◽  
Land Change ◽  
Land Transformation ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
Agricultural Areas

Long-term land changes are cumulatively a major driver of global environmental change. Historical land-cover/use change is important for assessing present landscape conditions and researching ecological environment issues, especially in eco-fragile areas. Arable land is one of the land types influenced by human agricultural activity, reflecting human effects on land-use and land-cover change. This paper selected Zhenlai County, which is part of the farming–pastoral zone of northern China, as the research region. As agricultural land transformation goes with the establishment of settlements, in this research, the historical progress of land transformation in agricultural areas was analyzed from the perspective of settlement evolution, and the historical reconstruction of arable land was established using settlement as the proxy between their inner relationships, which could be reflected by the farming radius. The results show the following. (1) There was little land transformation from nonagricultural areas into agricultural areas until the Qing government lifted the ban on cultivation and mass migration accelerated the process, which was most significant during 1907–1912; (2) The overall trend of land transformation in this region is from northeast to southwest; (3) Taking the topographic maps as references, the spatial distribution of the reconstructed arable land accounts for 47.79% of the maps. When this proxy-based reconstruction method is applied to other regions, its limitations should be noticed. It is important to explore the research of farming radius calculations based on regional characteristics. To achieve land-system sustainability, long-term historical land change trajectories and characteristics should be applied to future policy making.

Difference of microbiome and antibiotic resistome between earthworm gut and soil deciphered by a continental-scale survey

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong-Guan Zhu ◽  
Dong Zhu ◽  
Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo ◽  
Jian-Qiang Su ◽  
Jing Ding ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antibiotic Resistance ◽  
Bacterial Community ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Earthworm Gut ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
Term Field

Abstract Background Earthworms are globally distributed and quite capable of redistributing compounds, as well as bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) throughout the soil profile. The spread of medically relevant ARGs in soils has become an emerging environmental and health issue globally. However, our understanding on earthworm gut microbiome and antibiotic resistome is still lacking, especially at the large scale, and little is known about the role of earthworm in the dispersal of ARGs. Methods We conducted a continental-scale survey, including samples (earthworm gut and soil) from 28 provinces across China, from both natural and agricultural ecosystems (arable land: 35 sites and forested land: 16 sites). The 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and high throughput quantitative PCR were used to characterize the microbiome and antibiotic resistome, respectively. We further explored potential mechanisms behind changes in the abundance and diversity of ARGs in the earthworm gut. Then, the microcosm experiments and long-term field experiments with or without earthworms were employed to test the potential for earthworms to reduce the abundance of ARGs in soils. Results The diversity and structure of bacterial community were observably different between the earthworm gut and soil. Firmicutes (35.7%) and Proteobacteria (34.8%) were the dominant phyla in all earthworm gut samples. A significant correlation between bacterial community dissimilarity and spatial distance was identified in the earthworm gut. The earthworm gut consistently had a lower diversity and abundance of ARGs than in the surrounding soil. We further revealed that the change of ARGs in the earthworm gut was likely a consequence of the reduction in the abundance of mobile genetic elements and dominant bacterial phylotypes that are the likely hosts of ARGs. The microcosm study and long-term field experiments provided the experimental evidence that the presence of earthworms reduced the abundance and diversity of ARGs in soils. Conclusions Our findings highlight that earthworm gut and soil present the distinct microbiome and resistome at the continental scale, and earthworms may play an important role in the continental-scale mitigation of antibiotic resistance.

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