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Submission of original research paper for agriculture, ecosystems & environment ant community responses to farmland use and revegetation in a fragmented agricultural landscape

- Ng, Katherine, Nowrouzi, Somayeh, Staunton, Kyran, Barton, Philip, Driscoll, Don

  • Authors: Ng, Katherine , Nowrouzi, Somayeh , Staunton, Kyran , Barton, Philip , Driscoll, Don
  • Date: 2021
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment Vol. 311, no. (2021), p.
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  • Description: Recent alarming losses of insects from agricultural landscapes in multiple countries around the world have brought into sharp focus the urgent need to identify ways to manage these landscapes to avoid further biodiversity decline. Identifying the drivers of insect declines, such as land use change, is critical to this effort. We examined ant communities at the interface between remnant vegetation patches and three adjoining farmland types (wheat crop, rested from cropping and restoration plantings) in a fragmented landscape in temperate Australia. We asked: do ant communities and occurrence of individual species differ between remnant patches and farmlands with more intensive farmland use (restoration plantings < rested farmlands < wheat crop)? We recorded 13,283 ants belonging to 102 species from 30 genera. Excluding 21 singletons, 27 species only occurred in remnant patches compared to ten species found only in farmlands. Ant community composition in wheat crop and rested farmlands significantly differed from their adjacent remnant patches and were more homogeneous. In contrast, ant communities from restoration plantings in farmland were not significantly different in composition from those in the adjacent remnant patch. The large, aggressive Australian meat ant (Iridomyrmex purpureus) showed significantly higher occurrence in the remnant patch than all farmland types, and we suggest that the absence of this strongly interacting species from farmlands may have contributed to biotic homogenisation. Our findings show that native vegetation provides crucial habitat resources for many ant species that are not provided by farmlands, and native plantings can, in some cases, ameliorate negative effects of farmland clearing over relatively short time scales (<7 years). Agricultural intensification that involves loss of remnant native vegetation or reduced revegetation will contribute to ongoing losses and changes to ant biodiversity in farming landscapes. However, replanting native vegetation can lead to rapid restoration, signifying a possible simple remedy to insect declines. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.

Understanding the pathways from biodiversity to agro-ecological outcomes : a new, interactive approach

- González-Chang, Mauricio, Wratten, Stephen, Shields, Morgan, Costanza, Robert, Sandhu, Harpinder

  • Authors: González-Chang, Mauricio , Wratten, Stephen , Shields, Morgan , Costanza, Robert , Sandhu, Harpinder
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment Vol. 301, no. (2020), p.
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  • Description: The adoption of agro-ecological practices in agricultural systems worldwide can contribute to increased food production without compromising future food security, especially under the current biodiversity loss and climate change scenarios. Despite the increase in publications on agro-ecological research and practices during the last 35 years, a weak link between that knowledge and changed farmer practices has led to few examples of agro-ecological protocols and effective delivery systems to agriculturalists. In an attempt to reduce this gap, we synthesised the main concepts related to biodiversity and its functions by creating a web-based interactive spiral (www.biodiversityfunction.com). This tool explains and describes a pathway for achieving agro-ecological outcomes, starting from the basic principle of biodiversity and its functions to enhanced biodiversity on farms. Within this pathway, 11 key steps are identified and sequentially presented on a web platform through which key players (farmers, farmer networks, policy makers, scientists and other stakeholders) can navigate and learn. Because in many areas of the world the necessary knowledge needed for achieving the adoption of particular agro-ecological techniques is not available, the spiral approach can provide the necessary conceptual steps needed for obtaining and understanding such knowledge by navigating through the interactive pathway. This novel approach aims to improve our understanding of the sequence from the concept of biodiversity to harnessing its power to improve prospects for ‘sustainable intensification’ of agricultural systems worldwide. © 2020 The Authors. **Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Harpinder Sandhu” is provided in this record**
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