Essential Ecosystem Functions Research Articles

The impact of anthropogenic pressures on microbial diversity and river multifunctionality relationships on a global scale

Conserving biodiversity is crucial for maintaining essential ecosystem functions, as indicated by the positive relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. However, the impacts of declining biodiversity on ecosystem functions in response to mounting human pressures remain uncertain. This uncertainty arises from the complexity of trade-offs among human activities, climate change, river properties, and biodiversity, which have not been comprehensively addressed collectively. Here, we provide evidence that river biodiversity was significantly and positively associated with multifunctionality and contributed to key ecosystem functions such as microbially driven water purification, leaf litter decomposition and pathogen control. However, human pressure led to abrupt changes in microbial diversity and river multifunctionality relationships at a human pressure value of 0.5. In approximately 30 % (N = 58) of countries globally, the ratio of area above this threshold exceeded the global average (∼11 %), especially in Europe. Results show that human pressure affected ecosystem functions through direct effects and interactive effects. We provide more direct evidence that the nonadditive effects triggered by prevailing human pressure impact the multifunctionality of rivers globally. Under high levels of human stress, the beneficial effects of biodiversity on nutrient cycling, carbon storage, gross primary productivity, leaf litter decomposition, and pathogen control tend to diminish. Our findings highlight that considering interactions between human pressure and local abiotic and biotic factors is key for understanding the fate of river ecosystems under climate change and increasing human pressure.

A cost-effective method for quantifying soil respiration

Soil respiration is a critical indicator of microbial activity, reflecting soil health and its ability to deliver essential ecosystem services and functions. Chamber-based measurements provide direct observations and are relatively simple to implement, making them a popular choice for soil respiration studies. However, current methods to quantify soil respiration are limited in their applicability by high costs, substrate requirements, accuracy concerns and substantial setup time. With an increasing emphasis on routine analysis of soil respiration, existing methods are insufficient to provide the temporal and spatial scale required to proliferate soil respiration data. This study assesses the potential of an affordable and commercially available Non-Dispersive Infrared (NDIR) CO2 detector, used in conjunction with an easy-to assemble closed chamber, to provide reliable and accessible soil respiration measurements. The CO2 detectors utilised in this study are cost-effective yet precise digital detectors, successfully validated against a laboratory reference sensor and the standard alkali trap method. Beyond that, the detector has effectively yielded consistent results across replicates and demonstrated sensitivity similar to standard methods. The proposed detector offers an alternative to traditional laboratory methods by removing the necessity to perform soil respiration analysis in a laboratory setting. The proliferation of soil respiration data would facilitate the increasing interest in accessible information on soil respiration from stakeholders, citizen scientists and decision makers.

Land use intensity is a major driver of soil microbial and carbon cycling across an agricultural landscape

Soil carbon (C) storage is a critical ecosystem function that underpins human health and well-being. The acceleration of human-driven land use change, such as agricultural intensification, is a major driver of soil C loss globally. Developing sustainable land use practices that enhance agricultural productivity whilst protecting essential ecosystem functions such as soil C storage is vital. The soil microbiome has a critical role in regulating soil biogeochemical cycling processes, including soil C cycling. Examining the impacts of land use intensity on the soil microbiome enables us to assess the potential effects on long-term soil C stocks. Using metagenomic DNA sequencing and phospholipid fatty acid analysis, we investigated differences in the activity, diversity, and function of the soil microbiome associated with five contrasting land uses across an agricultural landscape. The land uses covered a gradient of disturbance intensities and included remnant native forest, regenerating native bush, exotic plantation forest, dryland pasture, and irrigated pasture. We identified pronounced differences in the soil microbiome associated with each land use, including the diversity and abundance of microbial C and nitrogen (N) cycling genes. Notably, intensive agricultural land uses had a significantly higher diversity and abundance of microbial C-degrading genes, whilst land uses of remnant native forest had the lowest diversity and abundance of microbial C-degrading genes. Our findings suggest that intensive agricultural land use may increase the functional potential of the soil microbiome to mineralize soil C, potentially resulting in a greater loss of soil C as respired CO2 into the atmosphere. This research may be used to support the development of sustainable management practices that promote the persistence of soil C across agricultural landscapes, such as the protection of remnant native forest fragments and greater incorporation of regenerating native vegetation.

Disentangling the effect of space, time, and environmental and anthropogenic drivers on coastal macrobenthic β diversity in contrasting habitats over 15 years

Coastal zones are biodiversity hotspots and deliver essential ecosystem functions and services, yet they are exposed to multiple and interacting anthropogenic and environmental constraints. The individual and cumulative effects of these constraints on benthic communities, a key component of coastal ecosystems, and their variability across space and time, remains to be thoroughly quantified to guide conservation actions. Here, we explored how the presence of biogenic habitats influences the response of benthic communities to natural and anthropogenic constraints. We investigated this effect in both intertidal and subtidal habitats exposed to different pressures. We used data collected in the North-East Atlantic over 15 years (2005–2019) as part of the REBENT monitoring program, covering 38 sites of bare sediments, intertidal seagrass beds and maerl beds. We collected a range of environmental variables and proxies of anthropogenic pressures and used variation and hierarchical partitioning with redundancy analyses to estimate their relative effect on macrobenthic communities. We used descriptors modeling spatial and temporal structures (dbMEMs) to explore the scale of their effects and potential missing predictors. The selected variables explained between 53 % and 64 % of macrobenthic β diversity depending on habitat and depth. Fishing pressures, sedimentary and hydrodynamics variables stood out as the most important predictors across all habitats while proxies of anthropogenic pressures were overall more important in intertidal habitats. In the intertidal, presence of biogenic habitat strongly modulated the amount of explained variance and the identity of the selected variable. Across both tidal levels, analysis of models' residuals further indicated that biogenic habitats might mitigate the effect of extreme environmental events. Our study provides a hierarchy of the most important drivers of benthic communities across different habitats and tidal levels, emphasizing the prominence of anthropogenic pressures on intertidal communities and the role of biogenic habitats in mitigating environmental changes.

Differential response of bacteria and fungi to drought on the decomposition of Sarcocornia fruticosa woody stems in a saline stream

AbstractInland saline ecosystems suffer multiple stresses (e.g., high radiation, salinity, water scarcity) that may compromise essential ecosystem functions such as organic matter decomposition. Here, we investigated the effects of drought on microbial colonization and decomposition of Sarcocornia fruticosa woody stems across different habitats in a saline watershed: on the dry floodplain, submerged in the stream channel and at the shoreline (first submerged, then emerged). Unexpectedly, weight loss was not enhanced in the submerged stems, while decomposition process differed between habitats. On the floodplain, it was dominated by fungi and high cellulolytic activity; in submerged conditions, a diverse community of bacteria and high ligninolytic activity dominated; and, on the shoreline, enzyme activities were like submerged conditions, but with a fungal community similar to the dry conditions. Results indicate distinct degradation paths being driven by different stress factors: strong water scarcity and photodegradation in dry conditions, and high salinity and reduced oxygen in wet conditions. This suggests that fungi are more resistant to drought, and bacteria to salinity. Overall, in saline watersheds, variations in multiple stress factors exert distinct environmental filters on bacteria and fungi and their role in the decomposition of plant material, affecting carbon cycling and microbial interactions.

Terrestrial carbon dynamics and economic valuation of ecosystem service for land use management in the Mediterranean region

Land use change is a significant cause of land degradation, resulting in the removal of carbon and its transfer to the hydrosphere or atmosphere, which can have a detrimental impact on essential ecosystem functions and services. In contrast, rural landscapes offer both ecological and economic benefits to people due to their carbon storage properties. This benefit is often evaluated within the framework of Ecosystem Services (ES). The rural landscapes offer unique structures and ecosystem services. The aim of this study is to provide an economic quantification of carbon storage and sequestration in rural landscapes as an ecosystem service and to introduce carbon-based rural landscape management. The study enables the integration of carbon-based strategies and policies by generating quantitative outputs for landscape plans that have not yet been included in the spatial planning hierarchy. The Upper Seyhan Basin (USB), located on the Eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkiye, was modelled using spatiotemporal and economic valuation approaches to assess terrestrial carbon storage and sequestration in this context. The study modelled and mapped the four main terrestrial carbon storage components in the rural landscape: (i) above-ground biomass, (ii) below-ground biomass, (iii) Soil Organic Carbon (SOC), and (iv) dead organic matter carbon. The future land cover of 2055 was modelled using the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP)-Markov Chain (MC) algorithm based on the “Business-As-Usual” (BAU) scenario to determine future carbon sequestration. The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) was estimated for Turkiye using the Regional Integrated Model of Climate and Economy (RICE) to economically model carbon services. In the final stage of the study, modelling outputs, including carbon storage pools/sinks, projected land cover dynamics, and SCC components, were used within the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model to map the carbon dynamics of the rural landscape at the regional level. This paper demonstrates the role of geospatial modelling and proposes a new planning and design logic that considers carbon-based inputs and global climate change in an appropriate format for land management by bridging the interface between earth sciences and spatial planning. The study results indicate that, the rural landscape in the study area provided an ecosystem service of 70,266 TgC carbon in 2014 with a storage value of USD 222,853,170. For the 2014–2025 projection, an estimated 1.042 TgC of carbon sequestration was valued at USD 6,234,137. The 2014–2055 projection estimated 3.185 TgC of carbon sequestration valued at USD 58,745,265.

Legacy effects of long‐term autumn leaf litter removal slow decomposition rates and reduce soil carbon in suburban yards

Societal Impact StatementAs cities grow, it is essential to understand how landscape management decisions in urban spaces alter ecosystem function. This study demonstrates that the ubiquitous practice of long‐term leaf litter removal in suburbs, even in relatively small patches of a yard, reduces the soil's ability to cycle nutrients in plant litter and results in lower amounts of carbon stored in the soil. Even two years of retaining leaves where they previously were removed is insufficient to restore decomposition rates or carbon pools. This research is an important step in creating best practices for litter management to maintain essential ecosystem functions, like carbon sequestration, water holding capacity, and soil fertility.Summary Seasonal senesced leaf litter removal eliminates considerable organic material from suburban soils annually. We test if this disturbance alters decomposition and carbon cycles and depletes soils of organic matter over time, creating persistent legacy effects. We used a factorial experimental design to implement 1–2 years of current leaf litter manipulations (remove or retain fallen leaves) within historically raked and unraked areas in suburban Maryland yards. We then compared total organic soil carbon and decomposition using a standardized substrate decomposition methodology (Tea Bag Index) across treatment plots. Long‐term litter removal in suburban yards reduced decomposition rates by 17% and total soil organic carbon concentration by up to 24% compared to areas where leaf litter was retained in situ. In contrast, short‐term management changes (1–2 years) did not significantly impact decomposition rates or total organic soil carbon concentrations. Our findings suggest that long‐term suburban litter raking creates legacy effects that alter decomposition and carbon storage process trajectories that are not easily reversed. This is important in understanding urban ecosystem function and sustainable management.

Chronic anthropogenic disturbance mediates the biodiversity‐productivity relationship across stand ages in a large temperate forest region

Abstract Temperate forests, especially those in the densely populated regions of the world, are experiencing increasing levels of habitat degradation and biological impoverishment due to subtle but pervasive chronic anthropogenic disturbances including frequent and continuous grazing and extraction of non‐timber forest products. However, the effects of these subtle, chronic disturbances on the biodiversity‐productivity relationship have rarely been examined especially in forests at different development stages. Accordingly, this study explores how chronic anthropogenic disturbance affects the relationship between tree species diversity and forest productivity at different stand development stages in a large temperate forest region. We used the human footprint index as a proxy for chronic human disturbance. Hierarchical Bayesian models were employed to assess the effects of chronic human disturbance on the relationship between tree diversity and forest productivity across different stand age. Several measures of diversity were employed, including taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity. Forest productivity consistently increased with taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic biodiversity; these biodiversity facets were the main drivers of forest productivity compared to stand age, chronic human disturbance and climate. However, the magnitude at which productivity increases with the increments of taxonomic and functional diversity diminishes with the increasing chronic disturbance, especially in younger stands. The effects of phylogenetic diversity on productivity did not vary with chronic disturbance, regardless of stand age. Synthesis and applications: Chronic human disturbance in a large temperate forest region reduces the increase in community productivity due to different facets of biodiversity, especially in young forests. The evidence suggests that the mitigation of chronic human disturbance and the conservation of biodiversity will be effective in sustaining essential ecosystem functions.

Discordant patterns between nitrogen-cycling functional traits and taxa in distant coastal sediments reveal important community assembly mechanisms.

A central question in microbial ecology is how immense microbes are assembled in changing natural environments while executing critical ecosystem functions. Over the past decade, effort has been made to unravel the contribution of stochasticity and determinism to the compositional of microbial communities. However, most studies focus on microbial taxa, ignoring the importance of functional traits. By employing shotgun metagenomic sequencing and state-of-the-art bioinformatics approaches, this study comprehensively investigated the microbially mediated nitrogen (N) cycling processes in two geographically distant coastal locations. Both shotgun and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing demonstrated significantly differed taxonomic compositions between the two sites. The relative abundance of major microbial phyla, such as Pseudomonadota, Thaumarchaeota, and Bacteroidota, significantly differed. In contrast, high homogeneity was observed for N-cycling functional traits. Statistical analyses suggested that N-cycling taxonomic groups were more related to geographic distance, whereas microbial functional traits were more influenced by environmental factors. Multiple community assembly models demonstrated that determinism strongly governed the microbial N-cycling functional traits, whereas their carrying taxonomic groups were highly stochastic. Such discordant patterns between N-cycling functional traits and taxa demonstrated an important mechanism in microbial ecology in which essential ecosystem functions are stably maintained despite geographic distance and stochastic community assembly.

Climate change and cropland management compromise soil integrity and multifunctionality

Soils provide essential ecosystem functions that are threatened by climate change and intensified land use. We explore how climate and land use impact multiple soil function simultaneously, employing two datasets: (1) observational – 456 samples from the European Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey; and (2) experimental – 80 samples from Germany’s Global Change Experimental Facility. We aim to investigate whether manipulative field experiment results align with observable climate, land use, and soil multifunctionality trends across Europe, measuring seven ecosystem functions to calculate soil multifunctionality. The observational data showed Europe-wide declines in soil multifunctionality under rising temperatures and dry conditions, worsened by cropland management. Our experimental data confirmed these relationships, suggesting that changes in climate will reduce soil multifunctionality across croplands and grasslands. Land use changes from grasslands to croplands threaten the integrity of soil systems, and enhancing soil multifunctionality in arable systems is key to maintain multifunctionality in a changing climate.

Interspecies interactions determine growth dynamics of biopolymer-degrading populations in microbial communities.

Microbial communities perform essential ecosystem functions such as the remineralization of organic carbon that exists as biopolymers. The first step in mineralization is performed by biopolymer degraders, which harbor enzymes that can break down polymers into constituent oligo- or monomeric forms. The released nutrients not only allow degraders to grow, but also promote growth of cells that either consume the degradation products, i.e., exploiters, or consume metabolites released by the degraders or exploiters, i.e., scavengers. It is currently not clear how such remineralizing communities assemble at the microscale-how interactions between the different guilds influence their growth and spatial distribution, and hence the development and dynamics of the community. Here, we address this knowledge gap by studying marine microbial communities that grow on the abundant marine biopolymer alginate. We used batch growth assays and microfluidics coupled to time-lapse microscopy to quantitatively investigate growth and spatial distribution of single cells. We found that the presence of exploiters or scavengers alters the spatial distribution of degrader cells. In general, exploiters and scavengers-which we collectively refer to as cross-feeder cells-slowed down the growth of degrader cells. In addition, coexistence with cross-feeders altered the production of the extracellular enzymes that break down polymers by degrader cells. Our findings reveal that ecological interactions by nondegrading community members have a profound impact on the functions of microbial communities that remineralize carbon biopolymers in nature.

Lessons learned from over thirty years of eelgrass restoration on the US West Coast

AbstractSeagrass habitats, which provide essential ecosystem functions such as water quality improvement, biodiversity support, ocean acidification amelioration, and sediment carbon storage, are declining worldwide. Eelgrass (Zostera marina) habitats along the contiguous US West Coast are threatened by conflicting human uses and global change, resulting in significant protections of and efforts to restore areas where habitat is extant or degraded. Despite a history of eelgrass restoration in this region spanning nearly 60 years, very little work has been published on the subject. Here, we review all available literature on eelgrass restoration projects conducted in California, Oregon, and Washington. Of the 82 restoration projects included in this analysis, which were conducted from 1989 to 2020, only 6 were published in peer‐reviewed journals. Thus, despite the precedent for conducting restoration, a lack of data availability makes assessing regional success, drivers of failure, and best practices extremely difficult. From this synthesis, we find that the majority of restoration projects (73%) have been conducted for mitigation (compliance) purposes, contributing to the lack of peer‐reviewed literature on the subject. We find that while eelgrass mitigation policies serve to maintain eelgrass structure and regional acreages, they do not facilitate assessments of habitat function or incentivize advancements in regional best practices. We also find that when we could evaluate project outcomes, 32.3%–59.6% of restoration plots were unsuccessful by the end of the project, but this percentage is highly dependent on how success is defined. According to restoration practitioners, failure was likely to result from environmental factors such as light, nutrients, or macroalgal blooms, but was occasionally due to logistical factors such as restoration method or approach. From this work, we recommend a standardized, evidence‐based approach to restoration, improved data sharing practices, and careful consideration of existing eelgrass mitigation practices. As marine habitat restoration enters a new global stage, backed by public and private investment, burgeoning carbon markets, and global biodiversity initiatives, it is essential to learn from past work to understand and improve seagrass conservation and restoration success.

An estuary stress index based on nekton relationships with thematic watershed stressors

Estuaries provide essential ecosystem functions, including serving as nurseries for fish and aquatic invertebrates (i.e., nekton). Understanding how anthropogenic stressors affect the habitat quality of estuaries is a crucial component of fisheries conservation. A meaningful composite indicator for estuary stress on the nekton community at regional scales should encapsulate major anthropogenic effects over an assemblage of important species. This study introduces a composite stressor index, using meta-analysis to synthesize trawl and seine-based sampling data on 39 nekton species from 25 monitoring programs covering 38 Pacific Coast estuaries spanning four ecoregions. Candidate stressor variables include pollution sources, urban and agricultural land use, and stream impairments, considered at different spatial scales. For each of the 39 focal species, we screened these stressors using hierarchical statistical models that account for environmental variability (e.g., salinity) across sampling events and systematic biases due to monitoring program protocols and species-specific biogeographic ranges. Based on this screening, we identified a subset of stressors most strongly related to nekton presence/absence. Then we used principal component analysis (PCA) to identify major thematic axes of variation across these stressors and the 38 estuaries. Hierarchical nekton models fit to these axes (i.e., thematic stressors) indicate that urban development is negatively related to most nekton species, while agriculture is often positively related to species presence, though with smaller estimated effects. These models were also used to create the estuary-level composite index of anthropogenic stress. Urban development is the major contributor to the index scores of most estuaries, except in the Oregon-Washington Coast ecoregion, where agriculture is dominant. The composite index indicates that estuaries in the Southern California Bight ecoregion are the most impacted, along with South San Francisco Bay.

FAVIS: Fast and versatile protocol for non-destructive metabarcoding of bulk insect samples.

Insects are diverse and sustain essential ecosystem functions, yet remain understudied. Recent reports about declines in insect abundance and diversity have highlighted a pressing need for comprehensive large-scale monitoring. Metabarcoding (high-throughput bulk sequencing of marker gene amplicons) offers a cost-effective and relatively fast method for characterizing insect community samples. However, the methodology applied varies greatly among studies, thus complicating the design of large-scale and repeatable monitoring schemes. Here we describe a non-destructive metabarcoding protocol that is optimized for high-throughput processing of Malaise trap samples and other bulk insect samples. The protocol details the process from obtaining bulk samples up to submitting libraries for sequencing. It is divided into four sections: 1) Laboratory workspace preparation; 2) Sample processing-decanting ethanol, measuring the wet-weight biomass and the concentration of the preservative ethanol, performing non-destructive lysis and preserving the insect material for future work; 3) DNA extraction and purification; and 4) Library preparation and sequencing. The protocol relies on readily available reagents and materials. For steps that require expensive infrastructure, such as the DNA purification robots, we suggest alternative low-cost solutions. The use of this protocol yields a comprehensive assessment of the number of species present in a given sample, their relative read abundances and the overall insect biomass. To date, we have successfully applied the protocol to more than 7000 Malaise trap samples obtained from Sweden and Madagascar. We demonstrate the data yield from the protocol using a small subset of these samples.

Sea level rise implications on future inland migration of coastal wetlands

Coastal wetlands provide essential ecosystem functions, including coastal protection, improvement in water quality and carbon sequestration, which are threatened due to sea level rise (SLR) – a well-documented aspect of anthropogenic climate change. While there are numerous articles on SLR impacts on wetlands, data about the interactions between natural or human-made barriers and future SLR projections e.g. coastal squeeze are still sparse. If wetlands are bounded by natural formations or human-made structures, coastal wetlands could be permanently lost in a warming climate. Here we delineate impacts of SLR on wetland inland migration under a changing climate in six locations around the world with a particular focus on the consequences of human-made structures along coastlines in Europe, specifically along the largest continuous coastal wetland system in the world, the Wadden Sea. Various locations around the world (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia) were chosen to analyze the impacts of regional SLR on wetland dynamics under climate change scenario. Our results show that places like Bangladesh, India and Myanmar have much larger areas at risk with nearly 10% of their coastal wetlands, whereas the wetlands in northern Australia seem to have a low area at risk to be lost with not even 1%. For the North Sea coast, wetlands where we had access to data from human-made infrastructure, we show that due to the built infrastructure, the wetland areas do not have the opportunity to evolve landward and hence, are expected to disappear permanently.

A meta-analysis suggests climate change shifts structure of regional communities of soil invertebrates

Soil animals perform a range of essential ecosystem functions and can modify the effects of global change on terrestrial ecosystems. We evaluated responses of six major groups of soil animals (Acari (all groups), Oribatida, Collembola, Insecta, Nematoda, and Oligochaeta) to controlled changes in air temperature, precipitation level or carbon dioxide concentration by using random-effects modelling and mixed-effects meta-regression modelling. Along with the three global change factors, sixteen local climatic characteristics (such as mean annual temperature, Köppen climate classification, vegetation type) were tested. Overall, 86 studies comprising 236 observations with mean duration of 51 months were selected as relevant for the analysis. Quantitative links between global change factors, local climate characteristics and changes in abundance of four taxonomic groups of soil animals were revealed. Warming and precipitation level were associated most strongly with population dynamics of soil invertebrates compared to elevated atmospheric CO2. Each 1 °C increase in air temperature was correlated with a mean of 12.5% (95% CI: 2.5%–22.6%) increase in Acari abundance, while populations of Collembola were declined by 9.6% (95% CI: −17.8% to −1.4%). Meanwhile, each 10% increase in precipitation level was correlated with the increase in the abundance of Nematoda by 1.4% (95% CI: −7.6% to 10.4%) and Oligochaeta by 34.7% (95% CI: 8.1%–61.2%). Considering IPCC estimates (SSP3-7.0 Scenario) of an average climate warming by 3.6 °C and a substantial variation in local precipitation levels (up to ±20%) by the end of the 21st century, strong local changes in the structure of detrital food webs are predicted by meta-regression models. In regions with decreased precipitation, the formation of soil food webs promoting carbon mineralization may be expected, while in regions with increased precipitation, the changes in detrital food web structure can contribute to the accumulation of carbon in the soil.

Continuous glyphosate applications affect plant development of mangrove species from coastal wetlands: Rhizophora mangle and Pachira aquatica

Glyphosate based herbicides not only affect unwanted plants in agricultural and urban areas, but also impact non-target vegetation, including its associated biome. The effect of the repeated application of these products on growth remains undetermined for many ecologically important trees. Coastal wetlands accumulate pollutants and therefore are exposed to different compounds at varying concentrations. This exposure may interfere with wetlands' ability to maintain essential ecosystem functions. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of different concentrations of a commonly used glyphosate-based herbicide on mesocosms planted with juvenile Rhizophora mangle and Pachira aquatica. We assessed the impact of herbicide treatment on plant growth as well as the subsurface CO2 efflux. Plants were transplanted to containers filled with fine gravel (substrate) and maintained under flooded conditions. Four different glyphosate treatments were investigated over a period of 124 days: in three treatments, glyphosate was added in two applications of either 25, 50, or 100 mg glyphosate acid equivalent (ae)/L, whereas in the fourth treatment, glyphosate was added in eight applications of 25 mg ae/L. Plant growth was measured (plant height, stem diameter, number of green leaves or leaflets) and subsurface CO2 efflux from the substrate was quantified. Different glyphosate concentrations resulted in different effects on plant growth for both species. Mesocosms that received continuous glyphosate applications exhibited reduced plant growth in the long term. Carbon dioxide efflux was reduced by different glyphosate concentrations. Our results contribute to further understanding the adverse impact that glyphosate-based products may have on ecologically important trees and their ecosystem services in coastal areas in the tropics.

Characteristics of Fragments of Woodland and Their Influence on the Distribution of Soil Fauna in Agricultural Landscape

Fragments of woodland represent important natural and semi-natural elements that contribute to ecological stability and biodiversity in a landscape. In the Czech Republic, they are part of the Territorial System of Ecological Stability (TSES), which consists of bio-centers, bio-corridors, and interaction elements. The presence of fragments of woodland is of growing importance in the agricultural landscape, where they provide effective protection against soil erosion and serve as a refuge for many animals, whose presence is crucial in maintaining essential ecosystem functions. A functioning ecosystem is especially important in intensively farmed landscapes, which are exposed to frequent and heavy disturbance. Our aim was to evaluate the influence of certain habitat characteristics of fragments of woodland on the activity-density and species richness of selected groups of soil invertebrates (ground beetles, spiders, harvestmen, centipedes, millipedes, and isopods). The research was conducted in the agricultural landscape of South Moravia (Czech Republic) in the summers of 2016–2017, for which we used pitfall traps to collect soil invertebrates on preselected fragments of woodland. The results highlight a wide range of habitat preferences of individual groups of invertebrates, wherein it is not possible to clearly determine the most favorable environmental conditions for all organisms. Consequently, the priority should be to maintain the highest possible degree of heterogeneity among natural and semi-natural features, including with respect to their surrounding landscape. In addition, we found that due to their small size and width, fragments of woodland that are not included in the concept of bio-centers and bio-corridors can similarly support the activity-density and diversity of soil fauna.

Earthworms in the conversion of natural grasslands to agropastoral systems—a preliminary study in Vale Verde, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Soils, in addition to supporting agricultural production, are the source of a wide diversity of essential ecosystem functions and services performed by invertebrate organisms. Earthworms play a key role as ecosystem engineers, but little is known about the diversity of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and even less concerning land-use conversion scenarios. Earthworms were sampled using the TSBF method in natural grassland (NG1) in July 2018 and subsequently converted to soybean in an agropastoral system (AP) in December 2018 and July 2019. In July 2019 a nearby natural grassland (NG2) was also sampled and considered as a reference. The earthworms were identified to family, genus and/or species, and the total number of individuals and proportion of native and exotic species were calculated and presented. A total of 583 individuals were collected and seven species were identified: three native species-Kerriona sp.7, Kerriona sp.8, Eukerria rosea; and four exotic/peregrine species-Amynthas corticis, Dichogaster bolaui, Bimastos parvus, Pontoscolex corethrurus. The two native Kerriona species are new to science and were found after the conversion of the area. The other native species (Eukerria rosea), also found after the conversion, had a high number of individuals in the last sample. The results can be related to the availability and changing of resources, due to the conversion of the land use with a high rain preceding the winter season.

An Update on the Habitat Suitability Model of <i>Dacrycarpus imbricatus</i> (Blume) de Laub. and Its Conservation Status in Bali, Indonesia

Dacrycarpus imbricatus provides essential ecosystem functions and various potential uses. Therefore, studying this distribution and conservation status in Bali Islands is crucial. The Habitat Suitability Model (HSM) and Geospatial Conservation Assessment Tool (GeoCAT) were used to predict this distribution and conservation status. The results showed changes in the predicted habitat suitability in 2050. Climate change conditions will impact the preferential habitat of the current location. The analysis classifies D. imbricatus as an endangered (EN) species in Bali. The model does not consider anthropogenic factors which change the land use/land cover. Therefore, more severe conservation efforts in Bali are needed for this species.