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Food security, food prices and climate variability
\"The agriculture system is under pressure to increase production every year as global population expands and more people move from a diet mostly made up of grains, to one with more meat, dairy and processed foods. This book uses a decade of primary research to examine how weather and climate, as measured by variations in the growing season using satellite remote sensing, has affected agricultural production, food prices and access to food in food-insecure regions of the world. The author reviews environmental, economics and multidisciplinary research to describe the connection between global environmental change, changing weather conditions and local staple food price variability. The context of the analysis is the humanitarian aid community, using the guidance of the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network and the United Nations World Food Program in their response to food security crises. These organizations have worked over the past three decades to provide baseline information on food production through satellite remote sensing data and agricultural yield models, as well as assessments of food access through a food price database. These datasets are used to describe the connection, and to demonstrate the importance of these metrics in overall outcomes in food-insecure communities\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Crop pests and predators exhibit inconsistent responses to surrounding landscape composition
The idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win–win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on pests are inconclusive. The observed heterogeneity in species responses to noncrop habitat may be biological in origin or could result from variation in how habitat and biocontrol are measured. Here, we use a pest-control database encompassing 132 studies and 6,759 sites worldwide to model natural enemy and pest abundances, predation rates, and crop damage as a function of landscape composition. Our results showed that although landscape composition explained significant variation within studies, pest and enemy abundances, predation rates, crop damage, and yields each exhibited different responses across studies, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing in landscapes with more noncrop habitat but overall showing no consistent trend. Thus, models that used landscape-composition variables to predict pest-control dynamics demonstrated little potential to explain variation across studies, though prediction did improve when comparing studies with similar crop and landscape features. Overall, our work shows that surrounding noncrop habitat does not consistently improve pest management, meaning habitat conservation may bolster production in some systems and depress yields in others. Future efforts to develop tools that inform farmers when habitat conservation truly represents a win–win would benefit from increased understanding of how landscape effects are modulated by local farm management and the biology of pests and their enemies.
Journal Article
Evidence of crop production losses in West Africa due to historical global warming in two crop models
Achieving food security goals in West Africa will depend on the capacity of the agricultural sector to feed the rapidly growing population and to moderate the adverse impacts of climate change. Indeed, a number of studies anticipate a reduction of the crop yield of the main staple food crops in the region in the coming decades due to global warming. Here, we found that crop production might have already been affected by climate change, with significant yield losses estimated in the historical past. We used a large ensemble of historical climate simulations derived from an atmospheric general circulation model and two process-based crop models, SARRA-H and CYGMA, to evaluate the effects of historical climate change on crop production in West Africa. We generated two ensembles of 100 historical simulations of yields of sorghum and millet corresponding to two climate conditions for each crop model. One ensemble is based on a realistic simulation of the actual climate, while the other is based on a climate simulation that does not account for human influences on climate systems (that is, the non-warming counterfactual climate condition). We found that the last simulated decade, 2000–2009, is approximately 1 °C warmer in West Africa in the ensemble accounting for human influences on climate, with more frequent heat and rainfall extremes. These altered climate conditions have led to regional average yield reductions of 10–20% for millet and 5–15% for sorghum in the two crop models. We found that the average annual production losses across West Africa in 2000–2009 associated with historical climate change, relative to a non-warming counterfactual condition (that is, pre-industrial climate), accounted for 2.33–4.02 billion USD for millet and 0.73–2.17 billion USD for sorghum. The estimates of production losses presented here can be a basis for the loss and damage associated with climate change to date and useful in estimating the costs of the adaptation of crop production systems in the region.
Journal Article
Mapping the Solastalgia Literature: A Scoping Review Study
Solastalgia is a relatively new concept for understanding the links between human and ecosystem health, specifically, the cumulative impacts of climatic and environmental change on mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Given the speed and scale of climate change alongside biodiversity loss, pollution, deforestation, unbridled resource extraction, and other environmental challenges, more and more people will experience solastalgia. This study reviewed 15 years of scholarly literature on solastalgia using a scoping review process. Our goal was to advance conceptual clarity, synthesize the literature, and identify priorities for future research. Four specific questions guided the review process: (1) How is solastalgia conceptualized and applied in the literature?; (2) How is solastalgia experienced and measured in the literature?; (3) How is ‘place’ understood in the solastalgia literature?; and (4) Does the current body of literature on solastalgia engage with Indigenous worldviews and experiences? Overall, we find there is a need for additional research employing diverse methodologies, across a greater diversity of people and places, and conducted in collaboration with affected populations and potential knowledge, alongside greater attention to the practical implications and applications of solastalgia research. We also call for continued efforts to advance conceptual clarity and theoretical foundations. Key outcomes of this study include our use of the landscape construct in relation to solastalgia and a call to better understand Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences of landscape transformation and degradation in the context of historical traumas.
Journal Article
The art of co-production of knowledge in environmental sciences and management: lessons from international practice
This review paper addresses the challenging question of “how to” design and implement co-production of knowledge in climate science and other environmental and agricultural sciences. Based on a grounded theory review of nine (9) published case studies of transdisciplinary and collaborative research projects, the paper offers a set of common themes regarding specific components and processes for the design, implementation, and achievement of co-production of knowledge work, which represent the “Modus Operandi” of knowledge co-production. The analysis focuses on practical methodological guidance based on lessons from how different research teams have approached the challenges of complex collaborative research. We begin by identifying broad factors or actions that inhibit or facilitate the process, then highlight specific practices associated with co-production of knowledge and necessary competencies for undertaking co-production. We provide insights on issues such as the integration of social and professional cultures, gender and social equity, and power dynamics, and illustrate the different ways in which researchers have addressed these issues. By exploring the specific practices involved in knowledge co-production, this paper provides guidance to researchers on how to navigate different possibilities of the process of conducting transdisciplinary and co-production of knowledge research projects that best fit their research context, stakeholder needs, and research team capacities.
Journal Article
Experimental evidence that honeybees depress wild insect densities in a flowering crop
While addition of managed honeybees (Apis mellifera) improves pollination of many entomophilous crops, it is unknown if it simultaneously suppresses the densities of wild insects through competition. To investigate this, we added 624 honeybee hives to 23 fields of oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) over 2 years and made sure that the areas around 21 other fields were free from honeybee hives. We demonstrate that honeybee addition depresses the densities of wild insects (bumblebees, solitary bees, hoverflies, marchflies, other flies, and other flying and flower-visiting insects) even in a massive flower resource such as oilseed rape. The effect was independent of the complexity of the surrounding landscape, but increased with the size of the crop field, which suggests that the effect was caused by spatial displacement of wild insects. Our results have potential implications both for the pollination of crops (if displacement of wild pollinators offsets benefits achieved by adding honeybees) and for conservation of wild insects (if displacement results in negative fitness consequences).
Journal Article
Invasion biology of spotted wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii): a global perspective and future priorities
The Asian vinegar fly Drosophila suzukii (spotted wing Drosophila [SWD]) has emerged as a major invasive insect pest of small and stone fruits in both the Americas and Europe since the late 2000s. While research efforts have rapidly progressed in Asia, North America, and Europe over the past 5 years, important new insights may be gained in comparing and contrasting findings across the regions affected by SWD. In this review, we explore common themes in the invasion biology of SWD by examining (1) its biology and current pest status in endemic and recently invaded regions; (2) current efforts and future research needs for the development of predictive models for its geographic expansion; and (3) prospects for both natural and classical (=importation) biological control of SWD in invaded habitats, with emphasis on the role of hymenopteran parasitoids. We conclude that particularly fruitful areas of research should include fundamental studies of its overwintering, host-use, and dispersal capabilities; as well as applied studies of alternative, cost-effective management techniques to complement insecticide use within the integrated pest management framework. Finally, we emphasize that outreach efforts are critical to effective SWD management by highlighting successful strategies and insights gained from various geographic regions.
Journal Article
Silicon accumulation in rice plant aboveground biomass affects leaf carbon quality
Background and aim
Silicon is known to be able to substitute carbon in plant biomass, especially in cellulose, lignin and phenols. However, a more comprehensive picture regarding the effect of silicon accumulation on plant carbon quality (cellulose, lignin, phenol, wax, lipids, and free organic acids content) with regard to potential decomposability is still missing.
Methods
Two different rice varieties (French brown and red rice cultivars) were cultivated under five different soil silicon availabilities. After maturity we harvested the plants and analyzed them regarding carbon quality by FTIR spectroscopy and regarding plant silicon concentrations.
Results
Silicon accumulation was found to be dependent on silicon availability and on the specific rice cultivar. The lowering of carbon compounds content by silicon was found not to be restricted to cellulose, lignin and phenol. Silicon accumulation was able to decrease other carbon compounds such as fat, wax, lipids, and free organic acids, too.
Conclusions
Consequently, silicon is important for the carbon quality of silicon accumulating plants. Furthermore, silicon accumulation in plants is interfering with a large range of different carbon compounds potentially altering the leaf economic spectra, decomposability, and thus potentially interfering with the whole performance of ecosystems dominated by silicon accumulating plant species.
Journal Article
Climate seasonality limits leaf carbon assimilation and wood productivity in tropical forests
The seasonal climate drivers of the carbon cycle in tropical forests remain poorly known, although these forests account for more carbon assimilation and storage than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Based on a unique combination of seasonal pan-tropical data sets from 89 experimental sites (68 include aboveground wood productivity measurements and 35 litter productivity measurements), their associated canopy photosynthetic capacity (enhanced vegetation index, EVI) and climate, we ask how carbon assimilation and aboveground allocation are related to climate seasonality in tropical forests and how they interact in the seasonal carbon cycle. We found that canopy photosynthetic capacity seasonality responds positively to precipitation when rainfall is < 2000 mm yr−1 (water-limited forests) and to radiation otherwise (light-limited forests). On the other hand, independent of climate limitations, wood productivity and litterfall are driven by seasonal variation in precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively. Consequently, light-limited forests present an asynchronism between canopy photosynthetic capacity and wood productivity. First-order control by precipitation likely indicates a decrease in tropical forest productivity in a drier climate in water-limited forest, and in current light-limited forest with future rainfall < 2000 mm yr−1.
Journal Article
A model species for agricultural pest genomics: the genome of the Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)
The Colorado potato beetle is one of the most challenging agricultural pests to manage. It has shown a spectacular ability to adapt to a variety of solanaceaeous plants and variable climates during its global invasion, and, notably, to rapidly evolve insecticide resistance. To examine evidence of rapid evolutionary change, and to understand the genetic basis of herbivory and insecticide resistance, we tested for structural and functional genomic changes relative to other arthropod species using genome sequencing, transcriptomics, and community annotation. Two factors that might facilitate rapid evolutionary change include transposable elements, which comprise at least 17% of the genome and are rapidly evolving compared to other Coleoptera, and high levels of nucleotide diversity in rapidly growing pest populations. Adaptations to plant feeding are evident in gene expansions and differential expression of digestive enzymes in gut tissues, as well as expansions of gustatory receptors for bitter tasting. Surprisingly, the suite of genes involved in insecticide resistance is similar to other beetles. Finally, duplications in the RNAi pathway might explain why
Leptinotarsa decemlineata
has high sensitivity to dsRNA. The
L
.
decemlineata
genome provides opportunities to investigate a broad range of phenotypes and to develop sustainable methods to control this widely successful pest.
Journal Article