Showing papers in "Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment in 1999"

TL;DR: The role of biodiversity in securing crop protection and soil fertility is explored in detail in this paper, where various options of agroecosystem management and design that enhance functional biodiversity in crop fields are described.

TL;DR: This review article on carabid in sustainable agro-ecosystems of the temperate Northern hemisphere presents a compilation of the available knowledge on the significance of carabids for natural pest control and the effects of cultivation methods (except pesticides) and landscape structural elements.

TL;DR: Overall, intensification and specialisation of arable and grassland systems is likely to have reduced the availability of key invertebrate and seed foods for birds, however, there is also evidence that reversal of intensification, especially in arable systems can result in rapid recovery of these resources.

TL;DR: It is argued that fluctuations in the spider community structure allows the bioevaluation of human disturbances because of the close correspondence between the vegetation architecture and the composition of the associated spider community.

TL;DR: These recent investigations may ultimately enable the expression by genetic engineering of increased levels of PA in the leaves of agriculturally important forage plants such as white clover and perennial rye grass, which will withstand continuous defoliation under grazing and currently contain only trace amounts of PA, which could potentially lead to the widespread use ofPA in temperate grazing systems.

TL;DR: The nematode ‘maturity index’ can provide useful information on the direction of change within a particular soil, and there are prospects that the abundance or proportion of c–p Groups 1 and 2 may have value as a transferable index.

TL;DR: Honeybees and pollination guildes offer new means of assessing ecosystemic health because the species diversity and abundance relationship is changed from the log-normal standard expected from ecological principles and niche theory.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors used CD-ROM based programs for rapid identification of collected specimens of earthworms, which can offer an important tool to evaluate different environmental transformations and impacts.

TL;DR: The general ecology, biology, life history, and available sources for identification of oribatid mites (including Astigmata), the most numerically dominant arachnid group in the organic horizons of most soils, are reviewed to evaluate their role for bioindication in agroecosystems.

TL;DR: Methods for optimizing the reliability and comparability of faunistic inventories are proposed, including rarefaction for reference functions and estimation of species numbers per unit area, and average empirical numbers for species diversity and abundance of major arthropod groups are given and compared to published data.

TL;DR: Measurement of the diversity of AMF communities in field soils presents a variety of challenges, among them the difficulty of identifying field collected spores, the detection of non-sporulating members of the community, and the lack of relation between functional diversity and the morphological diversity of spores used to delineate species.

TL;DR: The objective of this manuscript was to explore bacterial diversity and bioindication in agroecosystems and to enhance knowledge of soil bacterial functioning and diversity.

TL;DR: The introduction of botanically diverse field margin strips is shown to be an important method of increasing the arthropod diversity of semi-natural habitat in farmland.

TL;DR: Isopods tolerate some heavy metals by accumulating them in vesicles in the hepatopancreas and can serve as bioindicators of heavy metal pollution and be potentially useful for monitoring bio-accumulation of such contaminants.

TL;DR: The morpho-ecological characteristics of staphylinid beetle adults and developmental stages are summarized, and features pertaining to their potential use as bioindicators are highlighted.

TL;DR: The use of bioindicators is an innovative approach for assessing various types of environmental mismanagement, including pollution, high input farming, inappropriate disposal of wastes, contamination, etc as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: Ants are considered an important group of soil fauna, yet they have received meagre attention in comparison with other soil organisms such as earthworms as mentioned in this paper, and there is a need for specific experiments to test the hypothesis that ants can be used as bioindicators of soil quality.

TL;DR: Ciliates and, especially, testate amoebae, whose abundance and diversity can be reliably estimated in simple soil suspensions, should be preferred in environmental studies and should be given preference over dilution culture techniques, which are beset with uncontrollable deficiencies.

TL;DR: Results of the author’s studies on the effect of the pesticide Aldicarb on the Gamasina are summarized, which document various patterns of population development following pesticide application.

TL;DR: Given the high mobility of adults, Syrphidae are probably most suitable for environmental evaluation at a larger scale, e.g., for assessment of landscape diversity.

TL;DR: The importance of nitrogen (N), weeds, and water as yield-limiting factors was evaluated over a 4-year period in tomato cropping systems under conventional, low-input, and organic management as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: The peculiar aggregation behaviour of coccinellids remains to be exploited for acclimatization of a new species in a new country, and their migratory abilities pose challenges and opportunities for the development of effective biological control programs against aphids.

TL;DR: It was demonstrated that differences between similar farms and between the years on the individual farms might be explained by the detailed knowledge of management of the farms’ different subsystems (herd and crops).

TL;DR: This paper summarizes data concerning their ecology and distribution in various natural and man made habitats and their reaction to stress factors and the possibilities of interpreting such data as well as perspectives for future research are discussed.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O) related to Dutch agricultural crop production, and present an integrated approach to assess the total greenhouse gas emission related to agricultural production.

TL;DR: It is confirmed that ground beetles and wolf spiders may play an important role in controlling herbivore populations in agricultural fields, and their potential to limit Cicadellidae and Thysanoptera in maize field is revealed.

TL;DR: Only along the unsprayed winter wheat crop did the diversity and cover of dicotyledons increase, as did the floristic value of the vegetation, and the influence on adjacent ditch-bank vegetation of not spraying crop edges with pesticides was investigated in the Netherlands.

TL;DR: In this article, the influence of ozone, carbon dioxide and water availability on the relationship between grain protein and grain yield in wheat (Triticum aestivum L) was investigated.

TL;DR: It is suggested that in this managed grassland system soil moisture content and the stage of canopy development are the main factors regulating the seasonal pattern of N2O and N2 losses, and their ratio.

TL;DR: In this paper, the concentration of EDTA-extractable Zn, Cu, Ni and Pb in a Gleyic Lixisol that had been amended with sewage sludge for more than 19 years in Zimbabwe.