Agroecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether or not China can be rice self-sufficient in the future is in question. Here the authors provide a spatially explicit yield-gap analysis of Chinese rice production under future scenarios, identifying priority areas for improving yields to meet demands by 2030.

    • Nanyan Deng
    • , Patricio Grassini
    •  & Shaobing Peng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Yields vary between different cropping systems, though their temporal stability has not been quantified. Here, Knapp and van der Heijden present a meta-analysis showing that yields in organic agriculture have, per unit food produced, a lower temporal stability.

    • Samuel Knapp
    •  & Marcel G. A. van der Heijden

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rainforest conversion to plantations driven by global demand for agricultural products generates high environmental costs. Here, the authors show that the high oil palm plantation production efficiency is associated with decreased carbon storage and slower organic matter cycling that affect ecosystem services.

    • Thomas Guillaume
    • , Martyna M. Kotowska
    •  & Yakov Kuzyakov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate oscillations such as El Niño Southern Oscillation may impact global crop production. Here, the authors, using a unified framework of multiple climate oscillations, find that from 1961 to 2010 over two-thirds of the global cropland is located where crop productivity is influenced by climate oscillations.

    • Matias Heino
    • , Michael J. Puma
    •  & Matti Kummu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Agrochemicals can affect the life cycle of human parasites in unexpected ways. Here, Halstead et al. show in mesocosm experiments that agrochemicals increase the density of snails hosting schistosome parasites, and modeling analysis suggests this could lead to increased risk of human schistosomiasis.

    • Neal T. Halstead
    • , Christopher M. Hoover
    •  & Jason R. Rohr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Future agricultural productivity is threatened by high temperatures. Here, using 9 crop models, Schaubergeret al. find that yield losses due to temperatures >30 °C are captured by current models where yield losses by mild heat stress occur mainly due to water stress and can be buffered by irrigation.

    • Bernhard Schauberger
    • , Sotirios Archontoulis
    •  & Katja Frieler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The degree to which wheat yield in China will respond to future warming remains uncertain. These authors compile data from warming experiments and process-based statistical models and show that warming increases yield only in regions where growing season mean temperature is low and water supply is not limiting.

    • Chuang Zhao
    • , Shilong Piao
    •  & Shushi Peng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neonicotinoid as insecticide on oilseed rape can reduce bee colony density, but its effect at a large geographical scale is unclear. This study describes 18-year long wild bee tracking data in England and show neonicotinoid use is correlated with wild bee population declines at real landscape scales.

    • Ben A. Woodcock
    • , Nicholas J. B. Isaac
    •  & Richard F. Pywell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Attine ants, including the leaf-cutting ants, cultivate fungi as their sole source of food. Here, Nygaard et al. use whole genome and transcriptome sequences from seven ant species and their fungal cultivars to reconstruct the reciprocal genetic changes underlying the evolution of the ant-fungus mutualism.

    • Sanne Nygaard
    • , Haofu Hu
    •  & Jacobus J. Boomsma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global gridded crop models are increasingly used to assess climate change impacts on food production. Here, the authors assess crop yield uncertainty associated with soil data input, reporting that soil type strongly influences yield estimates, and may either buffer or amplify climate-related impacts.

    • Christian Folberth
    • , Rastislav Skalský
    •  & Marijn van der Velde

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global demand for agricultural biomass is expected to exceed potential supply over the next few decades. Here, Mauser et al. show that by improving the management and efficiency of farmlands, global biomass has the potential to substantially exceed these estimates without the need for cropland expansion.

    • Wolfram Mauser
    • , Gernot Klepper
    •  & Alvaro Calzadilla

  • Article |

    Palaeoclimate research often focuses on continental, hemispheric and global scales, neglecting the local-scale changes of most importance to human adaptation. Here, the authors propose a new tree-ring-based methodology, capable of producing high-frequency, highly local climate-field reconstructions.

    • R. Kyle Bocinsky
    •  & Timothy A. Kohler

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