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Local adaptation to rare habitats is difficult due to gene flow, but can occur if the habitat has higher productivity. Differences in offspring phenotypes have attracted little attention in this context. We model a scenario where the rarer habitat improves offspring's later competitive ability – a carryover effect that operates on top of local adaptation to one or the other habitat type. Assuming
Soil organic matter (SOM) stores the largest quantity of C in terrestrial ecosystems. Most SOM can be decomposed by microorganisms and released as CO2 into the atmosphere. The remaining fraction of SOM can be resistant against microbial decomposition over centuries to millennia. Changes in the magnitude of this stable SOM pool can have a substantial effect on the atmospheric CO2 concentration and
Nature-based solutions (NBS) is the latest contribution to the green concept family. NBS is defined as actions based in nature addressing societal challenges. In this study, we lean on the concept boundary object, broken down into three analytical categories: use, core ideas and granularities, to explore the cohesive and fragmenting powers of the NBS concept, and discuss its future role in green s
The idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win–win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on pests are inconclusive. The observed heterogeneity
There is widespread concern regarding declines in bee populations given their importance for the functioning of both natural and managed ecosystems. An increasing number of studies find negative relations between bee species richness and simplification of agricultural landscapes, but the role of land-use intensity and its relative importance compared to landscape simplification remain less clear.
Insect-mediated pollination increases yields of many crop species and some evidence suggests that it also influences crop quality. However, the mechanistic linkages between insect-mediated pollination and crop quality are poorly known. In this study, we explored how different pollination treatments affected fruit set, dry matter content (DMC), mineral content and storability of apples. Apple flowe
Bumble bee abundance in agricultural landscapes is known to decrease with increasing distance from seminatural grasslands, but whether the pollination of bumble-bee-pollinated wild plants shows a similar pattern is less well known. In addition, the relative effects of landscape composition (landscape heterogeneity) and landscape configuration (distance from seminatural grassland) on wild plant pol
Spatiotemporal resource continuity promotes persistence of mobile animal populations. Current agricultural landscapes are poor in flowers resources for bumble bees. Available forage crops are predominantly early-season mass-flowering crops (MFC). It has been suggested, but not tested, that scarcity of late-season flower resources are limiting bumble bee populations. We examined whether addition of
Effects of landscape heterogeneity and farming practice on species composition are less well known than those on species richness, in spite of the fact that community composition can be at least as important for ecosystem services, such as pollination. Here, we assessed the effect of organic farming and landscape heterogeneity on pollinator communities, focusing on multivariate patterns in species
Growing evidence for declines in wild bees calls for the development and implementation of effective mitigation measures. Enhancing floral resources is a widely accepted measure for promoting bees in agricultural landscapes, but effectiveness varies considerably between landscapes and regions. We hypothesize that this variation is mainly driven by a combination of the direct effects of measures on
Organic farming is promoted as a sustainable alternative to conventional farming, with positive effects on the diversity of plants and selected animal taxa. Here, we used a literature survey to collect presence/absence data on the composition of farmland bird, ground beetle, spider as well as butterfly and moth communities from 28 independent studies to identify genera and (sub-)families that had
To assess ecological consequences of bushmeat hunting in African lowland rainforests, we compared paired sites, with high and low hunting pressure, in three areas of southeastern Nigeria. In hunted sites, populations of important seed dispersers-both small and large primates (including the Cross River gorilla, Gorilla gorilla diehli)-were drastically reduced. Large rodents were more abundant in hu
Agri-environment schemes (AES) have been introduced to mitigate negative environmental effects caused by increased agricultural intensification in Europe. However, there is still debate on whether currently available incentives are efficiently enhancing farmland biodiversity. Moreover, agri-environment schemes often lead to a yield reduction, which has been argued to potentially increase pressure
Changes in forestry practices and on-going climate change may both have large impacts on forest bird populations. However, large-scale analyses of the effects of temporal changes in forest structure on forest bird numbers are largely lacking. We compared temporal trends from two Swedish nationwide long-term monitoring schemes, the Swedish Bird Survey (1998–2015) and the Swedish National Forestry I
As blooms of cyanobacteria expand and intensify in freshwater systems globally, there is increasing interest in their ecological effects. In addition to being public health hazards, cyanobacteria have long been considered a poor quality food for key zooplankton grazers that link phytoplankton to higher trophic levels. While past laboratory studies have found negative effects of nutritional constra
Measures of functional diversity are expected to predict community responses to land use and environmental change because, in contrast to taxonomic diversity, it is based on species traits rather than their identity. Here, we investigated the impact of landscape homogenisation on plants, butterflies and birds in terms of the proportion of arable field cover in southern Finland at local (0.25 km2)
Extreme climatic events, such as heat waves, are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity during the next hundred years, which may accelerate shifts in hydrological regimes and submerged macrophyte composition in freshwater ecosystems. Since macrophytes are profound components of aquatic systems, predicting their response to extreme climatic events is crucial for implementation of climate
Modeling pollination ecosystem services requires a spatially explicit, process-based approach because they depend on both the behavioral responses of pollinators to the amount and spatial arrangement of habitat and on the within- and between-season dynamics of pollinator populations in response to land use. We describe a novel pollinator model predicting flower visitation rates by wild central-pla
Along with the global decline of species richness goes a loss of ecological traits. Associated biotic homogenization of animal communities and narrowing of trait diversity threaten ecosystem functioning and human well-being. High management intensity is regarded as an important ecological filter, eliminating species that lack suitable adaptations. Below-ground arthropods are assumed to be less sen
