Institution
Wageningen University and Research Centre
Education•Wageningen, Netherlands•
About: Wageningen University and Research Centre is a education organization based out in Wageningen, Netherlands. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Sustainability. The organization has 23474 authors who have published 54833 publications receiving 2608897 citations.
Topics: Population, Sustainability, Agriculture, Climate change, Gene
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
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Aristotle University of Thessaloniki1, Centre national de la recherche scientifique2, Wageningen University and Research Centre3, Lund University4, University of Manchester5, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences6, University of Copenhagen7, University of Giessen8, University of Marburg9, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic10, University of Helsinki11, University of Reading12, University of Kent13, University of Vienna14
TL;DR: Intensive agriculture reduces soil biodiversity, making soil food webs less diverse and composed of smaller bodied organisms, and how changes in soil biodiversity due to land-use intensification may threaten the functioning of soil in agricultural production systems is discussed.
Abstract: Soil biodiversity plays a key role in regulating the processes that underpin the delivery of ecosystem goods and services in terrestrial ecosystems. Agricultural intensification is known to change the diversity of individual groups of soil biota, but less is known about how intensification affects biodiversity of the soil food web as a whole, and whether or not these effects may be generalized across regions. We examined biodiversity in soil food webs from grasslands, extensive, and intensive rotations in four agricultural regions across Europe: in Sweden, the UK, the Czech Republic and Greece. Effects of land-use intensity were quantified based on structure and diversity among functional groups in the soil food web, as well as on community-weighted mean body mass of soil fauna. We also elucidate land-use intensity effects on diversity of taxonomic units within taxonomic groups of soil fauna. We found that between regions soil food web diversity measures were variable, but that increasing land-use intensity caused highly consistent responses. In particular, land-use intensification reduced the complexity in the soil food webs, as well as the community-weighted mean body mass of soil fauna. In all regions across Europe, species richness of earthworms, Collembolans, and oribatid mites was negatively affected by increased land-use intensity. The taxonomic distinctness, which is a measure of taxonomic relatedness of species in a community that is independent of species richness, was also reduced by land-use intensification. We conclude that intensive agriculture reduces soil biodiversity, making soil food webs less diverse and composed of smaller bodied organisms. Land-use intensification results in fewer functional groups of soil biota with fewer and taxonomically more closely related species. We discuss how these changes in soil biodiversity due to land-use intensification may threaten the functioning of soil in agricultural production systems.
622 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the global impact of surface ozone on four types of agricultural crop using modelled global hourly ozone fields for the year 2000 and 2030, using the global 1 � � 1�
621 citations
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University of New England (Australia)1, Spanish National Research Council2, National University of Río Negro3, University of Reading4, Plant & Food Research5, Rutgers University6, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation7, University of Queensland8, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics9, Lund University10, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences11, University of California, Davis12, Naturalis13, University of Lisbon14, University of Brasília15, National University of Tucumán16, University of Koblenz and Landau17, Federal University of Ceará18, United Nations19, ETH Zurich20, Federal University of Bahia21, University of Giessen22, University of Freiburg23, Wageningen University and Research Centre24, American Museum of Natural History25, Hebrew University of Jerusalem26, University of Bern27, Trinity College, Dublin28, Royal Holloway, University of London29, Jagiellonian University30, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad31, Universidad de las Américas Puebla32
TL;DR: It is shown that non-bee insect pollinators play a significant role in global crop production and respond differently than bees to landscape structure, probably making their crop pollination services more robust to changes in land use.
Abstract: Wild and managed bees are well documented as effective pollinators of global crops of economic importance. However, the contributions by pollinators other than bees have been little explored despite their potential to contribute to crop production and stability in the face of environmental change. Non-bee pollinators include flies, beetles, moths, butterflies, wasps, ants, birds, and bats, among others. Here we focus on non-bee insects and synthesize 39 field studies from five continents that directly measured the crop pollination services provided by non-bees, honey bees, and other bees to compare the relative contributions of these taxa. Non-bees performed 25–50% of the total number of flower visits. Although non-bees were less effective pollinators than bees per flower visit, they made more visits; thus these two factors compensated for each other, resulting in pollination services rendered by non-bees that were similar to those provided by bees. In the subset of studies that measured fruit set, fruit set increased with non-bee insect visits independently of bee visitation rates, indicating that non-bee insects provide a unique benefit that is not provided by bees. We also show that non-bee insects are not as reliant as bees on the presence of remnant natural or seminatural habitat in the surrounding landscape. These results strongly suggest that non-bee insect pollinators play a significant role in global crop production and respond differently than bees to landscape structure, probably making their crop pollination services more robust to changes in land use. Non-bee insects provide a valuable service and provide potential insurance against bee population declines.
620 citations
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TL;DR: The results show that the simultaneous operation of trait-based assembly rules and species-level priority effects drives community assembly, making it both deterministic and historically contingent, but at different levels of community organization.
Abstract: Despite decades of research, it remains controversial whether ecological communities converge towards a common structure determined by environmental conditions irrespective of assembly history. Here, we show experimentally that the answer depends on the level of community organization considered. In a 9-year grassland experiment, we manipulated initial plant composition on abandoned arable land and subsequently allowed natural colonization. Initial compositional variation caused plant communities to remain divergent in species identities, even though these same communities converged strongly in species traits. This contrast between species divergence and trait convergence could not be explained by dispersal limitation or community neutrality alone. Our results show that the simultaneous operation of trait-based assembly rules and species-level priority effects drives community assembly, making it both deterministic and historically contingent, but at different levels of community organization.
619 citations
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TL;DR: The DOM-sponge-fauna pathway explains why biological hot spots such as coral reefs persist in oligotrophic seas—the reef’s paradox—and has implications for reef ecosystem functioning and conservation strategies.
Abstract: Ever since Darwin’s early descriptions of coral reefs, scientists have debated how one of the world’s most productive and diverse ecosystems can thrive in the marine equivalent of a desert. It is an enigma how the flux of dissolved organic matter (DOM), the largest resource produced on reefs, is transferred to higher trophic levels. Here we show that sponges make DOM available to fauna by rapidly expelling filter cells as detritus that is subsequently consumed by reef fauna. This “sponge loop” was confirmed in aquarium and in situ food web experiments, using 13C- and 15N-enriched DOM. The DOM-sponge-fauna pathway explains why biological hot spots such as coral reefs persist in oligotrophic seas—the reef’s paradox—and has implications for reef ecosystem functioning and conservation strategies.
618 citations
Authors
Showing all 23851 results
Name | H-index | Papers | Citations |
---|---|---|---|
Walter C. Willett | 334 | 2399 | 413322 |
Albert Hofman | 267 | 2530 | 321405 |
Frank B. Hu | 250 | 1675 | 253464 |
Willem M. de Vos | 148 | 670 | 88146 |
Willy Verstraete | 139 | 920 | 76659 |
Jonathan D. G. Jones | 129 | 417 | 80908 |
Bert Brunekreef | 124 | 806 | 81938 |
Pedro W. Crous | 115 | 809 | 51925 |
Marten Scheffer | 111 | 350 | 73789 |
Wim E. Hennink | 110 | 600 | 49940 |
Daan Kromhout | 108 | 453 | 55551 |
Peter H. Verburg | 107 | 464 | 34254 |
Marcel Dicke | 107 | 613 | 42959 |
Vincent W. V. Jaddoe | 106 | 1008 | 44269 |
Hao Wu | 105 | 669 | 42607 |