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Farmland is a major land cover type in Europe and Africa and provides habitat for numerous species. The severe decline in farmland biodiversity of the last decades has been attributed to changes in farming practices, and organic and low-input farming are assumed to mitigate detrimental effects of agricultural intensification on biodiversity. Since the farm enterprise is the primary unit of agricultural decision making, management-related effects at the field scale need to be assessed at the farm level. Therefore, in this study, data were collected on habitat characteristics, vascular plant, earthworm, spider, and bee communities and on the corresponding agricultural management in 237 farms in 13 European and two African regions. In 15 environmental and agricultural homogeneous regions, 6-20 farms with the same farm type (e.g., arable crops, grassland, or specific permanent crops) were selected. If available, an equal number of organic and non-organic farms were randomly selected. Alternatively, farms were sampled along a gradient of management intensity. For all selected farms, the entire farmed area was mapped, which resulted in total in the mapping of 11 338 units attributed to 194 standardized habitat types, provided together with additional descriptors. On each farm, one site per available habitat type was randomly selected for species diversity investigations. Species were sampled on 2115 sites and identified to the species level by expert taxonomists. Species lists and abundance estimates are provided for each site and sampling date (one date for plants and earthworms, three dates for spiders and bees). In addition, farmers provided information about their management practices in face-to-face interviews following a standardized questionnaire. Farm management indicators for each farm are available (e.g., nitrogen input, pesticide applications, or energy input). Analyses revealed a positive effect of unproductive areas and a negative effect of intensive management on biodiversity. Communities of the four taxonomic groups strongly differed in their response to habitat characteristics, agricultural management, and regional circumstances. The data has potential for further insights into interactions of farmland biodiversity and agricultural management at site, farm, and regional scale., (© 2016 by the Ecological Society of America.)

The functional Val158Met polymorphism in the gene coding for the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), the major enzyme degrading the catecholaminergic neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, has been associated with differential reactivity in limbic and prefrontal brain areas in response to aversive stimuli. However, studies on COMT-genotype effects on activity of the amygdala, a brain region centrally involved in affective processing, have yielded inconsistent results. Here we investigated the impact of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism on amygdala activity and connectivity during processing of emotional and neutral pictures using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 56 healthy participants. Homozygosity for the low-activity Met allele was positively correlated with increased activation in the right amygdala in response to unpleasant, but not pleasant pictures. In addition, the Met allele exerted an additive effect on the positive connectivity between the right amygdala and orbitofrontal regions. Our results support previous reports of a COMT-genotype-dependent difference in amygdala responsivity as well as connectivity, and highlight the importance of naturally occurring genetic variations in the catecholaminergic system for neural activity underlying affective processing., (Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Emotionally arousing events are typically well remembered, but there is a large interindividual variability for this phenomenon. We have recently shown that a functional deletion variant of ADRA2B, the gene encoding the alpha2b-adrenergic receptor, is related to enhanced emotional memory in healthy humans and enhanced traumatic memory in war victims. Here, we investigated the neural mechanisms of this effect in healthy participants by using fMRI. Carriers of the ADRA2B deletion variant exhibited increased activation of the amygdala during encoding of photographs with negative emotional valence compared with noncarriers of the deletion. Additionally, functional connectivity between amygdala and insula was significantly stronger in deletion carriers. The present findings indicate that the ADRA2B deletion variant is related to increased responsivity and connectivity of brain regions implicated in emotional memory.