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Over the last 30 years, many studies have surveyed weed vegetation on arable land. The 'Arable Weeds and Management in Europe' (AWME) database is a collection of 36 of these surveys and the associated management data. Here, we review the challenges associated with combining disparate datasets and explore some of the opportunities for future research that present themselves thanks to the AWME database. We present three case studies repeating previously published national scale analyses with data from a larger spatial extent. The case studies, originally done in France, Germany and the UK, explore various aspects of weed ecology (community composition, management and environmental effects and within-field distributions) and use a range of statistical techniques (canonical correspondence analysis, redundancy analysis and generalised linear mixed models) to demonstrate the utility and versatility of the AWME database. We demonstrate that (i) the standardisation of abundance data to a common measure, before the analysis of the combined dataset, has little impact on the outcome of the analyses, (ii) the increased extent of environmental or management gradients allows for greater confidence in conclusions and (iii) the main conclusions of analyses done at different spatial scales remain consistent. These case studies demonstrate the utility of a Europe-wide weed survey database, for clarifying or extending results obtained from studies at smaller scales. This Europe-wide data collection offers many more opportunities for analysis that could not be addressed in smaller datasets; including questions about the effects of climate change, macro-ecological and biogeographical issues related to weed diversity as well as the dominance or rarity of specific weeds in Europe.

Appendix S1. Details of data sets included in the EVA-W arable weed vegetation subset of the European Vegetation Archive. Appendix S2. Details of data sets included in Arable Weeds and Management in Europe data collection (as of 2021). Appendix S3. Record numbers presented in Figure 5 of the main paper. Appendix S4. Distribution of records over time in two data collections.

Questions: Two scientific disciplines, vegetation science and weed science, study arable weed vegetation, which has seen a strong diversity decrease in Europe over the last decades. We compared two collections of plot-based vegetation records originating from these two disciplines. The aim was to check the suitability of the collections for joint analysis and for addressing research questions from the opposing domains. We asked: are these collections complementary? If so, how can they be used for joint analysis?. Location: Europe. Methods: We compared 13 311 phytosociological relevés and 13 328 records from weed science, concerning both data collection properties and the recorded species richness. To deal with bias in the data, we also analysed different subsets (i.e., crops, geographical regions, organic vs conventional fields, center vs edge plots). Results: Records from vegetation science have an average species number of 19.0 ± 10.4. Metadata on survey methodology or agronomic practices are rare in this collection. Records from weed science have an average species number of 8.5 ± 6.4. They are accompanied by extensive methodological information. Vegetation science records and the weed science records taken at field edges or from organic fields have similar species numbers. The collections cover different parts of Europe but the results are consistent in six geographical subsets and the overall data set. The difference in species numbers may be caused by differences in methodology between the disciplines, i.e., plot positioning within fields, plot sizes, or survey timing. Conclusion: This comparison of arable weed data that were originally sampled with a different purpose represents a new effort in connecting research between vegetation scientists and weed scientists. Both collections show different aspects of weed vegetation, which means the joint use of the data is valuable as it can contribute to a more complete picture of weed species diversity in European ar

Food legumes are crucial for all agriculture-related societal challenges, including climate change mitigation, agrobiodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, food security and human health. The transition to plant-based diets, largely based on food legumes, could present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation, generating significant co-benefits for human health. The characterization, maintenance and exploitation of food-legume genetic resources, to date largely unexploited, form the core development of both sustainable agriculture and a healthy food system. INCREASE will implement, on chickpea (Cicer arietinum), common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), lentil (Lens culinaris) and lupin (Lupinus albus and L. mutabilis), a new approach to conserve, manage and characterize genetic resources. Intelligent Collections, consisting of nested core collections composed of single-seed descent-purified accessions (i.e., inbred lines), will be developed, exploiting germplasm available both from genebanks and on-farm and subjected to different levels of genotypic and phenotypic characterization. Phenotyping and gene discovery activities will meet, via a participatory approach, the needs of various actors, including breeders, scientists, farmers and agri-food and non-food industries, exploiting also the power of massive metabolomics and transcriptomics and of artificial intelligence and smart tools. Moreover, INCREASE will test, with a citizen science experiment, an innovative system of conservation and use of genetic resources based on a decentralized approach for data management and dynamic conservation. By promoting the use of food legumes, improving their quality, adaptation and yield and boosting the competitiveness of the agriculture and food sector, the INCREASE strategy will have a major impact on economy and society and represents a case study of integrative and participatory approaches towards conservation and exploitation of crop genetic resources.

Storage conditions have a strong influence on the germination of seeds of Avena fatua L, especially at variable conditions, the germination decreased. Seeds stored at a constant low temperature maintained the germination capability for 5 years. Under greenhouse conditions, seeds matured and germinated more rapidly comparing to field conditions, but individuals from these seeds were weaker and produced fewer seeds. The higher temperature in the greenhouse accelerated the development and maturing of plants. Field emergence varied depending on seed storage conditions, sample, further reproduction, and weather conditions. It was observed that individual specimens of A. fatua were able to form ripe seeds with high thousand grain mass (TGM), regardless of the occurrence of fungal diseases. The knowledge of the biology of A. fatua is very important due to its status as a restricted weed in certified seed of crop plants.