Residue management for soil improvement on sloping lands in Asia
Effects of set-aside management on birds breeding in lowland Ireland
Farmland birds have suffered a severe decline in recent years throughout Europe including Ireland. Agricultural intensification is believed to be the main cause and this has led to the introduction of agri-environmental schemes, of which set-aside is a part. Bird abundance and diversity were compared between set-aside and adjacent tillage or grassland at 18 locations.
Cheatgrass Percent Cover Change: Comparing Recent Estimates to Climate ChangeâDriven Predictions in the Northern Great Basin
Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) is a highly invasive species in the Northern Great Basin that helps decrease fire return intervals. Fire fragments the shrub steppe and reduces its capacity to provide forage for livestock and wildlife and habitat critical to sagebrush obligates. Of particular interest is the greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), an obligate whose populations have declined so severely due, in part, to increases in cheatgrass and fires that it was considered for inclusion as an endangered species.
Nutrient delivery from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico and effects of cropland conservation
Excessive nutrients transported from the Mississippi River Basin (MRB) have created a hypoxic zone within the Gulf of Mexico, with numerous negative ecological effects. Furthermore, federal expenditures on agricultural conservation practices have received intense scrutiny in recent years. Partly driven by these factors, the USDA Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) recently completed a comprehensive evaluation of nutrient sources and delivery to the Gulf.
The analysis on the change of farming lands in the territory of middle Lithuania
Land means the basic part of the natural environment, the basic instrument of human life, activity and immovable property, which is being disposed of in the process of land relation. Land should be used when coordinating private and public interests as well as environment protection requirements.
Integrated management plan of the South-East Pahang peat swamp forest
Is the combination of topsoil replacement and inoculation with plant material an effective tool for the restoration of threatened sandy grassland
Rearranging agricultural landscapes towards habitat quality optimisation: In silico application to pest regulation
Modern agriculture suffers from its dependence on chemical inputs and subsequent impacts on health and environment. Alternatively, protecting crops against pests can be achieved through the reinforcement of regulation ecological services. Our work propounds a data-driven methodological framework to derive relevant agricultural landscape rearrangements enhancing populations of beneficial organisms regulating pests.Building on spatialised entomological and geographic data, we developed a parsimonious reactionâdiffusion model describing the population dynamics of beneficial organisms.
Microtopography as a factor in the degradation of Vertisols in central India
Earlier studies on soil degradation in Vertisols of the Purna Valley of central India indicated that the semiarid climate characterized by a mean annual rainfall (MAR) of 875mm and a tropustic moisture regime is responsible for the development of calcareous sodic soils. Recent observations, however, indicate that in the adjacent east upland of the Purna Valley, namely in the Pedhi Watershed, Vertisols have drainage problems, although the area receives a higher MAR than the Purna Valley, the total MAR being 975mm.
Effects of large fires on biodiversity in south-eastern Australia: disaster or template for diversity?
Large fires coincident with drought occurred in south-eastern Australia during 2001-2007. Perceptions of large, intense fires as being ecologically 'disastrous' are common. These are summarised by four hypotheses characterising large fires as: (i) homogenous in extent and intensity; (ii) causing large-scale extinction due to perceived lack of survival and regeneration capacity among biota; (iii) degrading due to erosion and related edaphic effects; (iv) unnatural, as a consequence of contemporary land management.