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Background: The tropical rainforest biome plays a significant role in providing habitats for terrestrial biodiversity and delivering ecosystem service values, contributing to agricultural production. However, the increasing demand for tropical commodities with high economic value threatens this humid ecosystem and its biodiversity. To our knowledge, no studies have systematically mapped the relationship between the impacts of agricultural production on biodiversity and the effects of biodiversity on agricultural production in tropical rainforest areas. Methods: Since we were interested in systematically mapping the evidence measuring the impact of tropical agriculture on biodiversity (Map 1), and the vice versa relations, the influence of biodiversity on tropical agriculture production (Map 2), we developed a respective set of search strings, eligibility criteria, and subsequently performed independent searching, screening, and data coding processes. We searched articles from six peer-reviewed databases and 22 gray literature sources. Articles were screened based on the inclusion criteria at the title, abstract, and full-text levels. Individual articles that passed full-text screening were coded and synthesized to create heatmaps. Selected information of interest was also extracted and visualized in the graphics which were clustered based on the year of publication, geographical distribution, type of rainforest, exposure, outcome, farm commodity, and study comparators. Review findings: Two heatmaps were generated from a contrasting number of references, with heatmap 1 extracted from 222 studies and heatmap 2 derived from 10 times fewer references (n = 20). In heatmap 1, impacts of land conversion to aboveground biodiversity and wild species and ecosystem functions in natural ecosystems were the most common relationships examined, with 115 articles and 62 articles, respectively. Conversely, heatmap 2 showed evidence that focused predominantly on the examination of the links between the impacts of genetic resource diversity on environmental factors and soil management in tropical agricultural production, with four articles each exploring these relations. Conclusions: These systematic maps reveal that while studies investigating the impacts of tropical agricultural production on biodiversity were abundant, studies examining the impacts of biodiversity on tropical agricultural production were lacking despite both systematic maps experiencing an increasing trend of publication during 2000–2020. Map 1 emphasized the examination of the effects of land conversion on aboveground biodiversity, and on wild species and ecosystem functions. Map 2 highlighted the influence of crop genetic resources on environmental factors, and on soil management as the most frequently studied. The evidence cluster identified here can be the starting point for further systematic review study (to assess, for example, their cause–effect significance). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTA sufficient supply of ecosystem services (ESs) in agriculture provides the basis for human sustainable development. Intensified large-scale farming has changed wetland ecosystems extensively by reducing both the resilience and capacity to support production of many ESs. Small-scale farming may also affect the generation of ESs where the impact often reflects the differences in farming practices. This paper explores the supply and demand of the ESs between management practices, irrigated and rainfed, of smallholder farmers in Kilombero wetland, Tanzania. We conducted interviews involving 30 households and two focus groups with five discussants for each practice, rainfed and irrigation. Generally, we found that the need for ES, especially food, water and flood control, in both farming practices, were exceeding the capacity to supply. In general, irrigation farming compared to rainfed farming was associated with higher levels of food production, increasing flood regulation and erosion control. However, the ES delivery and need were not uniform depending on the river discharge. The differences in supply and demand of ESs between farming practices suggest that society would benefit from investing in irrigation and regulatory infrastructures to minimize flooding risk and to build up the ecosystem’s natural capacity to produce services. Such practical policy-relevant measures could balance the gap between supply and demand of ESs in smallholder farming systems in Tanzanian wetland.

Multifunctional and diversified agriculture can address diverging pressures and demands by simultaneously enhancing productivity, biodiversity, and the provision of ecosystem services. The use of digital technologies can support this by designing and managing resource-efficient and context-specific agricultural systems. We present the Digital Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (DAKIS) to demonstrate an approach that employs digital technologies to enable decision-making towards diversified and sustainable agriculture. To develop the DAKIS, we specified, together with stakeholders, requirements for a knowledge-based decision-support tool and reviewed the literature to identify limitations in the current generation of tools. The results of the review point towards recurring challenges regarding the consideration of ecosystem services and biodiversity, the capacity to foster communication and cooperation between farmers and other actors, and the ability to link multiple spatiotemporal scales and sustainability levels. To overcome these challenges, the DAKIS provides a digital platform to support farmers' decision-making on land use and management via an integrative spatiotemporally explicit approach that analyses a wide range of data from various sources. The approach integrates remote and in situ sensors, artificial intelligence, modelling, stakeholder-stated demand for biodiversity and ecosystem services, and participatory sustainability impact assessment to address the diverse drivers affecting agricultural land use and management design, including natural and agronomic factors, economic and policy considerations, and socio-cultural preferences and settings. Ultimately, the DAKIS embeds the consideration of ecosystem services, biodiversity, and sustainability into farmers' decision-making and enables learning and progress towards site-adapted small-scale multifunctional and diversified agriculture while simultaneously supporting farmers' objectives and societal demands.

Background: Future predictions of the world population and the demand for agricultural products per capita suggest that we have to increase food production at least two-fold by 2050 despite negative forces such as climate change with more frequent extreme weather conditions, degradation of land, increasing land scarcity, shortness of water, desertification, fooding and the loss of biodiversity for ecosystem services. One pathway how to achieve this challenge is sustainable intensification, which formulates a coarse goal rather than a detailed guideline. A heterogeneous compound of strategies is necessary and a central aspect involves examining the potential of AI technology to boost production efficiency while mitigating negative environmental consequences. Methodology: To comprehensively examine this topic, two systematic literature searches were conducted. The first aimed to gather information on sustainable agriculture and the environmental costs of conventional practices. The second focused on identifying explicit AI applications and their impact. Results: Numerous examples demonstrated how sustainable AI development drives agriculture towards a more sustainable future. The main contribution of this study is the Data-Model-Purpose matrix (DMP matrix) and the derived Bayesian matrix for a comprehensive analysis of several AI applications in agriculture and their relations to data sources and algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Selection of shade tree species for agroforestry systems must take the complexity of these systems into account. Tree species selection should maximize the provision of ecosystem services while minimizing disservices. Selected species must be adapted to local agroecological conditions and cater to farmers' needs, while considering their preferences and constraints. The ShadeTreeAdvice methodology was developed to support said selection process using farmers' local ecological knowledge. It provides the steps to rapidly identify tree species and evaluate their impacts on a range of locally important ecosystem services. Results are uploaded to a decision support tool to tailor tree species recommendations to individual farmers' needs (www.shadetreeadvice.org). During the 5 year timeframe between 2016 and 2020, eight studies following this methodology were conducted in various coffee and cocoa growing regions across Africa, Asia and Central America. This article looks back at these studies to synthesize their findings and evaluate the methodology. We identified similarities in the use of tree species across different study areas, notably regarding leguminous and fruit tree species. We showed that the method was efficient to evaluate tree species' impacts on soil and climate regulation, crop production, and economic benefits. It was less efficient for evaluating impacts related to incidence of pests and diseases, often associated with knowledge gaps. The method also successfully allowed investigating the links between LEK and socio‐economic groups or environmental factors. Furthermore, we suggest a series of improvements in the methodology for future studies. These improvements include (i) broadening the scope of studies beyond tree species provision of ecosystem services to include tree species impact on farming practices; (ii) allowing the comparison of tree performances in agroforestry systems versus in full sun; (iii) providing a clear pathway for validation of the results; (iv) using tree species' functional traits to generalize the results. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

In the humid tropics, the socioecological advantages of family-based, multistory agroforestry systems are well recognized. Yet public policies tend to focus on conservation and land-sparing strategies alongside the promotion of modern intensive agriculture, neglecting these biodiverse agroecosystems, which are in decline. This is a particularly central issue in cocoa cultivation. In Africa's two largest cocoa-producing countries (Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana), cocoa plantations with few associated trees contribute to deforestation and biodiversity loss. In contrast, in regions like Cameroon, biodiversity-rich cocoa agroforests prevail. Considering global changes and rising cocoa demand, it is crucial to preserve and develop these agroforestry systems that reconcile cocoa production with ecosystem services. This study, conducted in Cameroon between 2013 and 2017, aimed to pinpoint the socioeconomic factors influencing the characteristics, maintenance, and degradation of cocoa agroforests, with the ultimate goal of identifying intervention strategies to promote their preservation and development. The study collected data from (i) on-field measurements in 95 cocoa agroforestry plots, (ii) interviews with the 95 farmers managing the plots, and (iii) historical interviews with 50 key informants. We focused on five sites across a gradient of population density, encompassing various socioecological environments and types of cocoa agroforests. Through thematic and statistical analyses, we evaluated differences between the five sites. Our results indicated contrasting management practices, dendrometric structure, species composition, and cocoa yields between sites. These contrasts largely reflected socioeconomic factors and site-specific dynamics. Cocoa agroforests were less rich in biodiversity in sites where farmers with capital using hired labor had acquired land than in sites where family farmers predominated. A trade-off was found between the richness of companion trees and cocoa yields. Plots managed by smallholder family farmers near urban areas tended to better reconcile cocoa production and biodiversity conservation. These farmers had gradually transformed their traditional agroforests to adapt to increasing demographic pressure by integrating diverse fruit tree species, using pesticides sparingly, and introducing selected cocoa varieties mixed with older varieties. The small-scale family-managed cocoa agroforests, which incorporate fruit species as described in this study, could serve as a model for a more sustainable cocoa production strategy. However, developing such a strategy would require greater investment and support from policymakers. This includes supporting the marketing of products from companion trees, stabilizing cocoa prices at a high level, and implementing land policies that protect small and medium-sized family farmers. [Display omitted] • Complex agroforests are predominant in the oldest cocoa-growing sites in Cameroon. • Managed by family farmers, complex agroforests are replicated on newly cleared land. • Investors and patronal farmers develop simplified agroforests with high input levels. • An intensified model of family agroforests has emerged due to demographic pressure. • Family agroforests successfully reconcile cocoa production with biodiversity conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sufficient supply of ecosystem services (ESs) in agriculture provides the basis for human sustainable development. Intensified large-scale farming has changed wetland ecosystems extensively by reducing both the resilience and capacity to support production of many ESs. Small-scale farming may also affect the generation of ESs where the impact often reflects the differences in farming practices. This paper explores the supply and demand of the ESs between management practices, irrigated and rainfed, of smallholder farmers in Kilombero wetland, Tanzania. We conducted interviews involving 30 households and two focus groups with five discussants for each practice, rainfed and irrigation. Generally, we found that the need for ES, especially food, water and flood control, in both farming practices, were exceeding the capacity to supply. In general, irrigation farming compared to rainfed farming was associated with higher levels of food production, increasing flood regulation and erosion control. However, the ES delivery and need were not uniform depending on the river discharge. The differences in supply and demand of ESs between farming practices suggest that society would benefit from investing in irrigation and regulatory infrastructures to minimize flooding risk and to build up the ecosystem's natural capacity to produce services. Such practical policy-relevant measures could balance the gap between supply and demand of ESs in smallholder farming systems in Tanzanian wetland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selection of shade tree species for agroforestry systems must take the complexity of these systems into account. Tree species selection should maximize the provision of ecosystem services while minimizing disservices. Selected species must be adapted to local agroecological conditions and cater to farmers' needs, while considering their preferences and constraints.The ShadeTreeAdvice methodology was developed to support said selection process using farmers' local ecological knowledge. It provides the steps to rapidly identify tree species and evaluate their impacts on a range of locally important ecosystem services. Results are uploaded to a decision support tool to tailor tree species recommendations to individual farmers' needs (www.shadetreeadvice.org). During the 5 year timeframe between 2016 and 2020, eight studies following this methodology were conducted in various coffee and cocoa growing regions across Africa, Asia and Central America.This article looks back at these studies to synthesize their findings and evaluate the methodology. We identified similarities in the use of tree species across different study areas, notably regarding leguminous and fruit tree species. We showed that the method was efficient to evaluate tree species' impacts on soil and climate regulation, crop production, and economic benefits. It was less efficient for evaluating impacts related to incidence of pests and diseases, often associated with knowledge gaps. The method also successfully allowed investigating the links between LEK and socio‐economic groups or environmental factors.Furthermore, we suggest a series of improvements in the methodology for future studies. These improvements include (i) broadening the scope of studies beyond tree species provision of ecosystem services to include tree species impact on farming practices; (ii) allowing the comparison of tree performances in agroforestry systems versus in full sun; (iii) providing a clear pathway for validation of the results; (iv) using tree species' functional traits to generalize the results. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying sustainable practices and landscape features that enhance the abundance of organisms providing ecosystem services can be challenging due to a limited understanding of the link between these practices and ecosystem functioning. One approach to assessing system complexity is to incorporate reliable indices that are markers of an essential ecosystem regulation service such as insect pollination. Consolidate indicators of sustainable farming practices and landscape features into two indices that consider different spatial scales (regional and local) to categorize peri-urban farms within two gradients of territorialized environmental sustainability. These indices enable the assessment of agroecosystem sustainability for a particular ecosystem service (insect pollination), which is critical for many crops. The regional-scale index utilized four indicators of composition and configuration that reflected the landscape's heterogeneity and its influence on key resources and bee movement. For these features, we used three land classes: semi-natural, farm, and extensive crops within a 3000-m radius circle from the centre of the farm. The local-scale index included eight indicators relating to the sustainability of farming practices derived from semi-structured interviews with the farmers. Additionally, we included an indicator based on the extent of semi-natural areas within a 100-m radius circle. Both indices generated a synthesis to obtain two gradients (regional and local) of territorialized environmental sustainability for the farms. We validated these metrics through records of bee abundance on Cucurbita maxima flowers in each farm, as an indicator of the bee-pollination service. The variations of regional and local indices among and within the same farm (e.g., a high local-scale index and a low regional-scale index) emphasize the importance of considering both spatial contexts when evaluating ecosystem services. Both indices correlated with bee abundance, with the local-scale index exhibiting a positive stronger correlation than the regional (0.68 vs. 0.61 respectively). For farmers, making changes to farming practices at the local scale is more achievable than altering features at the regional scale, where government territorial planning and coordinated efforts among residents in the area are required. Consequently, enhancing a local-scale practice might be a more feasible way to increase farm sustainability. The indices will enable a more straightforward comparison of sustainability among farms or within the same farm over time than analyzing each socio-environmental metric separately. Following the methodology proposed here, other indices for other essential ecosystem services in agroecosystems could be developed. [Display omitted] • Creation of two environmental sustainability indices at regional and local scales focused on insect pollination service. • Both scales incorporate landscape features, with the local scale adding agricultural practice indicators. • The indices generate gradients that capture peri-urban complexity. • Farms displayed varied sustainability patterns depending on the analyzed scale. • The local-scale index exhibited a stronger correlation with bee abundance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the ecosystem services which are provided by agriculture land and on the urban sprawl in the study area of municipality with extended powers Třebíč. The main focus of this article is to evaluate what ecosystem services are provided to Czech society by the agricultural land and assess their financial value and also evaluate which ecosystem services disappear or are limited due to urban sprawl on agricultural land. Generally, the topic of ecosystem services in agriculture comes under focus especially in view of the recurring drought in Europe and on-going climate change. Also the subject of urbanization and decreasing area available for agriculture is a wide-spread phenomena in Europe. The practical output of this paper will comprise of better insight on function and value of land under agriculture use which is lost due to urban development and raising the awareness amongst the society on the fast-growing trend of unsustainable urban sprawl.

Background: Evaluating the impacts of land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes on ecosystem service values (ESVs) is essential for sustainable use and management of ecosystems. In this study, we evaluated the impact of human activity driven LULC changes on ESVs over the period 1982–2016/17 in contrasting agro-ecological environments: Guder (highland), Aba Gerima (midland), and Debatie (lowland) watersheds of the Upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia. Results: During the study period, the continuous expansion of cultivated land at the expense of natural vegetation (bushland, forest, and grazing land) severely reduced the total ESV by about US$ 58 thousand (35%) in Aba Gerima and US$ 31 thousand (29%) in Debatie watersheds. In contrast, the unprecedented expansion of plantations, mainly through the planting of Acacia decurrens, led, from 2006, to a ESV rebound by about US$ 71 thousand (54%) in Guder watershed, after it had decreased by about US$ 61 thousand (32%) between 1982 and 2006. The reduction in natural forest area was the major contributor to the loss of total ESV in the study watersheds, ranging from US$ 31 thousand (63%) in Debatie to US$ 96.9 thousand (70%) in Guder between 1982 and 2016/17. On an area-specific basis, LULC changes reduced the average ESV from US$ 560 ha−1 year−1 (1982) in Guder to US$ 306 ha−1 year−1 (2017) in Debatie watersheds. Specific ESVs such as provisioning (mainly as food production) and regulating services (mainly as erosion control and climate regulation) accounted for most of the total ESVs estimated for the study watersheds. Conclusions: In most cases, the total and specific ESVs of the watersheds were negatively associated with the population growth, which in turn was positively associated with the expansion of cultivated land over the study period. In Guder, however, ESVs were positively associated with population growth, especially after 2012. This is mainly due to the expansion of Acacia decurrens plantations. Our results suggest, therefore, that future policy measures and directions should focus on improving vegetation cover through planting multipurpose trees such as Acacia decurrens to prevent future loss of ESV in the midland and lowland regions of the Upper Blue Nile basin and beyond. However, caution must be taken during plantation of invasive species as they may have undesirable consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societal demand for multifunctional agricultural landscapes keeps increasing. To promote such landscapes, it is necessary to identify which components of landscape heterogeneity support multiple ecosystem services, as well as levers of action to promote these landscape properties. The social-ecological theoretical framework for multifunctional landscapes has inspired 40 years of research in the Long Term Socio-Ecological Research site of Vallées et Coteaux de Gascogne (VCG), which is part of the LTSER platform ZA PYGAR located in south-west France. Researchers from different domains of the social and biophysical sciences, have worked together in this LTSER site and gained a multidisciplinary understanding of both drivers of VCG landscape dynamics and the role of landscape heterogeneity for multiple ecosystem services. Local features of the VCG and social systems have interacted with global drivers and lead to the maintenance of a high level of landscape heterogeneity. We show how the different components of landscape heterogeneity influence cultural, provisioning, supporting, and regulating services. In collaboration with stakeholders, we developed scenarios to explore possible futures for the VCG landscapes and are now integrating models developed for the VCG to assess the consequences of these scenarios on landscape multifunctionality. This synthesis demonstrates how LTSER sites can be particularly relevant to explore the future of multifunctional agricultural landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the nutrient regulation ecosystem service (ES) demand was quantified and mapped in an agriculturally-dominated landscape in the federal German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The demand was assessed in a case study area on an individual field scale. As an indicator for the nutrient regulation ecosystem service demand, nitrogen budgets were calculated. The assessment includes a comparison of an agriculturally calculated nitrogen budget to an ecologically calculated nitrogen budget. The agricultural calculation is based on legal regulations and considers volatile nitrogen losses from fertilizers, whereas the ecological calculation incorporates the total amount of nitrogen and includes also the atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Furthermore, the positive effects of additional agricultural practices on the nutrient regulation ES demand were identified. The spatial distribution of the nutrient regulation ES demand was compared to the distribution of the nitrate leaching and denitrification potential in order to analyse the relative vulnerability of individual fields to nutrient oversupply. The findings of this study, which highlight in particular the suitability of enlarged crop rotation systems, can be used to support sustainable agricultural practices and land management strategies on the local sale. EDITED BY Christine Fürst [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Mediterranean region, the long-term provision of agro-ecosystem services is threatened by accelerating climate change, unsustainable farming practices, and other pressures. Alternative management practices such as conservation agriculture could be expected to ensure sustainability of ecosystem services from Mediterranean agro-ecosystems. Conservation agriculture is characterized by minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and diversification of crop species. We analyzed the impacts of several forms of alternative agricultural management practices (conservation tillage, cover cropping, mulching, manual weed management, organic fertilizer use, no-irrigation system) on multiple ecosystem services based on 155 published case studies (1994–2015). The effect size of various management options on four provisioning and four regulating ecosystem services were quantified. Impacts of conservation management options are not uniform. All regulating services were positively affected by the conservation management options except for the system without irrigation. In contrast, the provisioning services were inconsistently influenced by the conservation management options. For crop yield, environmentally sustainable soil management was beneficial, but organic fertilization (effect size = − 0.17), manual weed management (effect size = − 0.35), and no-irrigation system (effect size = − 0.5) led to lower crop yields. The impact on crop biomass was mainly negative but not significant. Water availability was especially important to enhance both provisioning and regulating services. Overall, alternative agriculture management practices led to more positive than negative effects on ecosystem services in the study region. Stimulating the application of conservation management practices is therefore an important policy option for decision-makers given the vulnerability of ecosystem services in the Mediterranean basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agro-ecological intensification (AEI) harnesses natural processes, such as pollination, that support sustainable crop production and can buffer against future food security risks. However, the transition from conventional agriculture, which relies on inputs that can damage natural ecosystem processes, to more sustainable food production under AEI, is knowledge-intensive. Here, we investigated knowledge gaps among smallholder farmers about pollinators and field margins in a bean agri-system in Tanzania. While 77% of farmers were familiar with and identified honeybees correctly prior to training, only 52% understood their role as a pollinator of crops. Furthermore, 80% and 98% of farmers were unaware of the significance of wild (solitary) bees or the importance of hoverflies as pollinators. A high level of synthetic agrochemical use was reported for the management of pests and weeds, particularly in the more agriculturally intensive production systems. However, an end-line survey conducted one year after training showed an increase in knowledge and the majority of farmers, 99%, 54% and 62% subsequently recognised honeybees, hoverflies and solitary bees respectively, by name. Furthermore, 95%, 69% and 60% of farmers understood the importance of honeybees, hoverflies and solitary bees respectively, as crop pollinators and natural enemies (for hoverflies). Similarly, a majority of farmers recognised the benefits of biopesticides as environmentally safer over synthetic pesticides as well as the value of field margins in supporting pollinators and other ecosystem services. We argue that, improving understanding among smallholder farmers of ecosystem services and their ecological requirements is both feasible and essential to achieving sustainable intensification in small holder farming systems. • Smallholder knowledge of pollinators and their importance to food security is weak. • The value of field margins as refuge for beneficial insects is not well understood. • Training can close knowledge gaps and change farming practice. • Smallholders acquire and retain knowledge about pollinators and field margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world’s largest area of tropical peatland ecosystems is found in South-East Asia. These peatlands have globally significant carbon stocks and play an important role in regional and global climate systems. Despite the valuable social and economic services and ecosystem biodiversity these tropical peatlands provide, misguided land use policies have resulted in widespread peatland degradation in the region during the past 20 years. This paper reviews the drivers of peatland degradation in South-East Asia and confirms that logging, conversion to industrial plantations, drainage, and recurrent fires are the principal direct drivers of peatland degradation in South-East Asia, and that these drivers are compounded by a complex mix of indirect socioeconomic, policy- and climate change-related factors. The review concludes by noting that in order to address the problem of peatland degradation, we first need to know more about how to design and assess “successful” peatland restoration initiatives, and what regulatory and policy interventions are likely to improve peatland conservation and restoration outcomes in the South-East Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing landscape complexity can enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services in agroecosystems. However, policies based on conversion of arable land into semi-natural habitats to increase landscape complexity and ecosystem services can be difficult to implement. Although it appears to be a promising management option, nothing is known about the effect of increasing landscape diversity through crop rotations on the delivery of ecosystem services., In this study, we examined how landscape complexity and crop rotation intensity in the landscape at different spatial scales affect the flow and the stability of natural pest control services in barley fields using manipulative cage experiments., Exclusion experiments revealed that natural enemies can have a strong impact on aphid population growth and that the delivery of pest control services is strongly dependent on the landscape context., We found that the overall level of pest control increased with landscape complexity and that this effect was independent of crop rotation intensity. In addition, the within-field stability in pest control services increased with crop rotation intensity in the landscape, although stability in parasitism rates decreased., Multiple spatial scales analyses showed that the mean level of natural pest control was best predicted by landscape complexity at the 0·5-km and the 1-km spatial scales. The stability in overall pest control decreased with proportion of ley at the 2·5-km and the 3-km spatial scales., Synthesis and applications. Our study disentangled, for the first time, the relative effects of landscape complexity and crop rotation intensity on the delivery of an ecosystem service. We show that combined management of semi-natural habitat and crop rotation can stabilize and enhance natural pest control in agricultural landscapes. Our findings have important implications in terms of management options to maintain and enhance ecosystem services in agroecosystems. They suggest that conservation of heterogeneous landscapes, characterized by a higher proportion of semi-natural habitats such as pastures and relatively small fields, is essential for maintaining and enhancing effective biological control in agroecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long term conservation of ecosystem services requires a deep understanding of their basic processes and the development of tools to assess the effects of human practices on their efficiency. As an example of recycling service, we focus on the consumption of livestock carcasses by obligate scavengers, taking the case of vultures which face a dramatic decline worldwide. We investigate whether maintaining this recycling service through individual feeding stations called light feeding stations in contrast to aggregated resource on heavy feeding stations can meet the double objectives of vulture conservation and service efficiency. We built a spatially explicit multi-agent model to investigate the long term effects of livestock farmers practices on both the recycling service efficiency for farmers and vulture population carrying capacity including: (i) carcass disposal practices that drive the quantity and spatial distribution of resources for vultures and (ii) temporal distribution of livestock mortality due to economic choices that drive the dynamics of resources for vultures. In addition, we examine various scenarios related to vulture feeding behaviour – i.e. central place vs. random foraging and contest vs. scramble intraspecific competition – that may play a role in the vulture carrying capacity and recycling service efficiency. When accounting for vulture central place foraging, we found that favouring the use of light feeding stations instead of heavy feeding station does not affect vulture population carrying capacity and increases the number of farmer for which vulture service is optimal. The increase of light feeding station users poorly affects the number of farmers for which vulture service is optimal in contrast to results obtained with a vulture random foraging behaviour. Both of the recycling service efficiency and the vulture carrying capacity vary with the kind of intraspecific competition and with the seasonal distribution of livestock mortality. Livestock mortality distributions with a seasonal peak of mortality result in a mismatch between vulture food requirement and farmers needs for carcass removal. Finally we raise several points on the relevance of light feeding stations as a sustainable management for vulture conservation and for the recycling service and discuss the potential implications of seasonal scarcity of resources due to farming economic constraints. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To support agroecological transition aimed at sharply reducing the use of synthetic inputs, agricultural systems must undergo in-depth change in which biological processes are enhanced with a view to providing ecosystem services. This transformation of the cropping systems requires design processes which should rely on the exploration of science-based and expert-based knowledge and of alternative solutions (divergence thinking), and on the tailoring of the solution to the situation at hand (convergent thinking). Our objective is to build, together with end users, cognitive resources structuring knowledge. These resources will then serve to guide users in the exploration of agroecological solutions that are both disruptive and tailored to the situation in which they will be implemented. Based on theoretical insights from Design Studies, we first proposed guidelines for building cognitive resources to support divergent and convergent thinking. Based on these guidelines, we built prototypes of cognitive resources, with specific knowledge structures adapted to design reasoning in agriculture: the function-based resource and the biology-based resource, to stimulate divergent thinking in the exploration process; and the experience-based resource to support both convergent and divergent thinking. We then conducted 12 user tests of these prototypes, with various targeted users (advisors, farmers, teachers, researchers) who were either designers of agroecological systems or contributors, eager to use actionable resources to share what they had learnt about innovative systems or their knowledge on ecological processes. We received feedback from the designers who had used the resources in context, and from the contributors who had developed cognitive resources using the suggested guidelines. Our findings highlight how the resources support agronomist-designers and facilitators in their activities during the exploration part of a design process, from the preparation of design workshops to the stimulation within workshops and the ex-post documentation of a collective exploration for its reuse by other designers. Contributors recognized that the suggested guidelines and prototypes would both help to build on existing knowledge and enable future reuse by designers. They also noted the completeness, the evidence and the value-laden nature of the content. We finally discussed how these cognitive resources could be collectively enriched by a community of practitioners with diverse expectations and values, sharing the common goal of designing agroecosystems conducive to agroecology. Our research contributes to a critical shift in knowledge capitalization (mixing science-based and experience-based knowledge) to support the design process of agroecosystems, involving various actors, including practitioners. [Display omitted] • Guidelines are proposed to structure cognitive resources fostering exploration in agroecological system design. • Resources capitalize on both science-based and experience-based knowledge • The knowledge capitalization is facilitated by collective workshops attended by knowledge owners. • The progressive elaboration of the resources was informed by feedback from users in design situations. • The proposed cognitive resources enhance convergent and divergent thinking in design workshops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]