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This paper empirically analyzes the non-linear effect of economic activities on ecological balance indicators that estimate the balance between economies’ pressure on nature and the biologically productive resource areas affected by human activity and the earth’s ecological carrying capacity. In measuring this balance, ecological balance sheet indicators are divided into four sub-components: cropland, fishing grounds, forest area, and grazing land. The sample of the study consists of the EU-15 countries over the period 1995–2016. To render the study robust with respect to econometric issues such as potential endogeneity bias, cross-country heterogeneity, non-linearity, and time instability, the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) method is adapted. The empirical findings reveal that up to a certain threshold level, economic activities do not affect the ecological balance as nature can compensate for the resulting externalities, but beyond this threshold, waste accumulation and pollution exceed nature’s capacity to absorb. Consequently, these findings do not empirically support the EKC hypothesis with an inverted U-shaped curve and suggest that active environmental policies are needed to improve the environment.

Little has been studied about human-animal interaction in general; Some particular experimental and descriptive studies provide information that must be systematized. The systematic review study aims to answer, using the standard Prisma methodology, the research question: What is known about the interaction of human-animal biodiversity? It includes original open access studies, of the experimental and descriptive type that provide relevant information, extracted from the Scopus database, from 2015 to 2023, using the keyword biodiversity, until the date of October 26, 2023. The analysis of the data uses cluster analysis, and the nearest neighbor method, 19 studies were selected that show the dynamic interaction between humans and animals. The study is limited to describing interactions between humans and animals, excluding other interactions. It concludes by showing the positive and negative impacts of coexistence, the majority being negative such as predation, transmission of emerging diseases, nutritional use, behavioral changes, changes in land use and their economic and social consequences, for which laws and policies that guarantee regulated coexistence.

In light of rapid shifts in biodiversity associated with human impacts, there is an urgent need to understand how changing patterns in biodiversity impact ecosystem function. Functional redundancy is hypothesized to promote ecological resilience and stability, as ecosystem function of communities with more redundant species (those that perform similar functions) should be buffered against the loss of individual species. While functional redundancy is being increasingly quantified, few studies have linked differences in redundancy across communities to ecological outcomes. We conducted a review and meta‐analysis to determine whether empirical evidence supports the asserted link between functional redundancy and ecosystem stability and resilience. We reviewed 423 research articles and assembled a data set of 32 studies from 15 articles across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Overall, the mean correlation between functional redundancy and ecological stability/resilience was positive. The mean positive effect of functional redundancy was greater for studies in which redundancy was measured as species richness within functional groups (vs. metrics independent of species richness), but species richness itself was not correlated with effect size. The results of this meta‐analysis indicate that functional redundancy may positively affect community stability and resilience to disturbance, but more empirical work is needed including more experimental studies, partitioning of richness and redundancy effects, and links to ecosystem functions.

Removal of invasive exotic shrubs from mountaintop communities increased the number of pollinators and positively altered pollinator behaviour, which enhanced native fruit production, indicating that the degradation of ecosystem functions is partly reversible. Restoring plant communities boosts pollination Human activities often have damaging effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functions, but whether the targeted manipulation of ecological communities can successfully mitigate and reverse these impacts is the subject of much debate. Here, Christopher Kaiser-Bunbury et al . assess the effect of one form of restoration—the removal of all alien plant species—on the structure and function of plant–pollinator networks in mountain-top communities in the Seychelles. Vegetation restoration leads to a marked increase in the number of pollinator species and pollinator visits to flowers. There is also an increase in the diversity of pollinator interactions and, importantly, the pollination of fruit crops and native plants. The findings suggest that the degradation of ecosystem functions, in this case pollination, is at least partly reversible. Land degradation results in declining biodiversity and the disruption of ecosystem functioning worldwide, particularly in the tropics 1 . Vegetation restoration is a common tool used to mitigate these impacts and increasingly aims to restore ecosystem functions rather than species diversity 2 . However, evidence from community experiments on the effect of restoration practices on ecosystem functions is scarce 3 . Pollination is an important ecosystem function and the global decline in pollinators attenuates the resistance of natural areas and agro-environments to disturbances 4 . Thus, the ability of pollination functions to resist or recover from disturbance (that is, the functional resilience) 5 , 6 may be critical for ensuring a successful restoration process 7 . Here we report the use of a community field experiment to investigate the effects of vegetation restoration, specifically the removal of exotic shrubs, on pollination. We analyse 64 plant–pollinator networks and the reproductive performance of the ten most abundant plant species across four restored and four unrestored, disturbed mountaintop communities. Ecosystem restoration resulted in a marked increase in pollinator species, visits to flowers and interaction diversity. Interactions in restored networks were more generalized than in unrestored networks, indicating a higher functional redundancy in restored communities. Shifts in interaction patterns had direct and positive effects on pollination, especially on the relative and total fruit production of native plants. Pollinator limitation was prevalent at unrestored sites only, where the proportion of flowers producing fruit increased with pollinator visitation, approaching the higher levels seen in restored plant communities. Our results show that vegetation restoration can improve pollination, suggesting that the degradation of ecosystem functions is at least partially reversible. The degree of recovery may depend on the state of degradation before restoration intervention and the proximity to pollinator source populations in the surrounding landscape 5 , 8 . We demonstrate that network structure is a suitable indicator for pollination quality, highlighting the usefulness of interaction networks in environmental management 6 , 9 .

The biotic mechanisms underlying ecosystem functioning and stability have been extensively—but separately—explored in the literature, making it difficult to understand the relationship between functioning and stability. In this study, we used community models to examine how complementarity and selection, the two major biodiversity mechanisms known to enhance ecosystem biomass production, affect ecosystem stability. Our analytic and simulation results show that although complementarity promotes stability, selection impairs it. The negative effects of selection on stability operate through weakening portfolio effects and selecting species that have high productivity but low tolerance to perturbations (“risk-prone” species). In contrast, complementarity enhances stability by increasing portfolio effects and reducing the relative abundance of risk-prone species. Consequently, ecosystem functioning and stability exhibit either a synergy, if complementarity effects prevail, or trade-off, if selection effects prevail. Across species richness levels, ecosystem functioning and stability tend to be positively related, but negative relationships can occur when selection co-varies with richness. Our findings provide novel insights for understanding the functioning-stability relationship, with potential implications for both ecological research and ecosystem management.

Our planet is facing significant changes of biodiversity across spatial scales. Although the negative effects of local biodiversity (α diversity) loss on ecosystem stability are well documented, the consequences of biodiversity changes at larger spatial scales, in particular biotic homogenization, that is, reduced species turnover across space (β diversity), remain poorly known. Using data from 39 grassland biodiversity experiments, we examine the effects of β diversity on the stability of simulated landscapes while controlling for potentially confounding biotic and abiotic factors. Our results show that higher β diversity generates more asynchronous dynamics among local communities and thereby contributes to the stability of ecosystem productivity at larger spatial scales. We further quantify the relative contributions of α and β diversity to ecosystem stability and find a relatively stronger effect of α diversity, possibly due to the limited spatial scale of our experiments. The stabilizing effects of both α and β diversity lead to a positive diversity–stability relationship at the landscape scale. Our findings demonstrate the destabilizing effect of biotic homogenization and suggest that biodiversity should be conserved at multiple spatial scales to maintain the stability of ecosystem functions and services.

Local and indigenous knowledge is being transformed globally, particularly being eroded when pertaining to ecology. In many parts of the world, rural and indigenous communities are facing tremendous cultural, economic and environmental changes, which contribute to weaken their local knowledge base. In the face of profound and ongoing environmental changes, both cultural and biological diversity are likely to be severely impacted as well as local resilience capacities from this loss. In this global literature review, we analyse the drivers of various types of local and indigenous ecological knowledge transformation and assess the directionality of the reported change. Results of this analysis show a global impoverishment of local and indigenous knowledge with 77% of papers reporting the loss of knowledge driven by globalization, modernization, and market integration. The recording of this loss, however, is not symmetrical, with losses being recorded more strongly in medicinal and ethnobotanical knowledge. Persistence of knowledge (15% of the studies) occurred in studies where traditional practices were being maintained consiously and where hybrid knowledge was being produced as a resut of certain types of incentives created by economic development. This review provides some insights into local and indigenous ecological knowledge change, its causes and implications, and recommends venues for the development of replicable and comparative research. The larger implication of these results is that because of the interconnection between cultural and biological diversity, the loss of local and indigenous knowledge is likely to critically threaten effective conservation of biodiversity, particularly in community-based conservation local efforts.

Agriculture and related industries have traditionally been of great importance in the national economy of the Russian Federation. Socio-economic prerequisites for the development of the agro-industrial complex are determined by the scale and general development of the territory, its population, labor resources, as well as regional differences in the economic situation: rising prices, investments, proximity to markets for products. At the same time, the functioning of the agro-industrial complex is a source of various problems for the environment and requires the adoption of effective measures to restore the ecological balance.

Synchronous dynamics (fluctuations that occur in unison) are universal phenomena with widespread implications for ecological stability. Synchronous dynamics can amplify the destabilizing effect of environmental variability on ecosystem functions such as productivity, whereas the inverse, compensatory dynamics, can stabilize function. Here we combine simulation and empirical analyses to elucidate mechanisms that underlie patterns of synchronous versus compensatory dynamics. In both simulated and empirical communities, we show that synchronous and compensatory dynamics are not mutually exclusive but instead can vary by timescale. Our simulations identify multiple mechanisms that can generate timescale-specific patterns, including different environmental drivers, diverse life histories, dispersal, and non-stationary dynamics. We find that traditional metrics for quantifying synchronous dynamics are often biased toward long-term drivers and may miss the importance of short-term drivers. Our findings indicate key mechanisms to consider when assessing synchronous versus compensatory dynamics and our approach provides a pathway for disentangling these dynamics in natural systems.

Background and aims Crop diversity has been repeatedly shown to support multiple ecosystem functions, both directly and indirectly, driven by interspecific root-root interactions. Despite continuous advances in this field, some research gaps remain, and we need to pay more attention to the design and management of multi-species and multi-cultivar systems in the future. Scope We review advances in intercropping in enhanced ecosystem functioning in competition-based and facilitation-based intercropping systems via root-root interactions. We also consider recent achievements in yield stability and soil fertility. We address several perspectives to focus on towards more sustainable agriculture via intercropping or cultivar mixtures in the future. Conclusions In competition-based systems, scramble competition via root-root competition and contest competition involving allelochemicals offset yield advantages of target crop species. However, niche differentiation and selection of desirable crop combinations to minimize negative effects through secondary metabolites may also help to gain yield advantages in intercropping and cultivar mixtures. In facilitation-based systems, selecting genotypes of facilitated species with root traits that best match the facilitator may strengthen the facilitative interactions in resource enrichment and disease and pest control. We need more long-term research to explore the effects of belowground processes on soil fertility, ecosystem stability, adaptation, and mitigation of climate change to establish sustainable agroecosystems in the future. It is also urgent to develop new methods to link belowground processes to functioning in multi-species and multi-cultivar agroecosystems.