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Audia E, Schulte LA, Tyndall J. Measuring changes in financial and ecosystems service outcomes with simulated grassland restoration in a Corn Belt watershed. FRONTIERS IN SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 2022. [DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2022.959617] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
While provisioning ecosystem services generated through agricultural production are high, this often comes at the expense of other ecosystem services. Approaches that support both farm income and a balanced array of ecosystem services are needed. We employed a landscape modeling approach to demonstrate the financial and ecosystem service outcomes of strategically restoring grassland cover within a Corn Belt agricultural watershed. We assessed potential changes associated with a “Baseline” land use scenario and two alternative scenarios for the Grand River Basin (Iowa and Missouri, USA). In a “Buffered” scenario we simulated the impacts of replacing cropland within 20 m of streams with restored native grassland cover. In a “Productivity-based” scenario we simulated the replacement of annual row crops on poorly performing croplands with native grassland cover. Grasslands comprised 0.4% of the Baseline scenario. Grassland was expanded to 0.8% of the watershed in the Buffered scenario, reducing annual nutrient and sediment loss by 1.44%, increasing soil carbon sequestration by 0.12% over 10 years, and increasing pollinator abundance by 0.01%. The estimated annual value of these enhancements was $1.7 million for nitrogen reduction, $0.1 million for phosphorus reduction, $0.5 million for sediment reduction, and $1.3 million for soil carbon sequestration. Grassland comprised 4.9% of the watershed in the Productivity-based scenario, reduced annual nutrient and sediment loss by 11.50%, increased soil carbon sequestration by 1.13% over 10 years, and increased pollinator abundance by 0.42%. The estimated annual value of enhancements was $18 million for nitrogen reduction, $1.4 million for phosphorus reduction, $2.5 million for sediment reduction, and $14 million for soil carbon sequestration. We also calculated the value of grassland biomass for a potential energy market. The benefit of producing and selling grassland biomass ranged -$445 to $1,291 ha−1 yr−1. Scaled to the watershed, annual revenues ranged -$7.3 million to $21.1 million for the Buffered scenario and -$44.2 million to $128.8 million for the Productivity-based scenario. This study was the first to quantify changes in revenue and the value of ecosystem services associated with grassland restoration in the Grand River Basin and can help inform discussion among watershed stakeholders.
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Lybbert AH, Cusser SJ, Hung KLJ, Goodell K. Ten-year trends reveal declining quality of seeded pollinator habitat on reclaimed mines regardless of seed mix diversity. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2022; 32:e02467. [PMID: 34614245 DOI: 10.1002/eap.2467] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2020] [Revised: 04/06/2021] [Accepted: 05/14/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Plant-pollinator interactions represent a crucial ecosystem function threatened by anthropogenic landscape changes. Disturbances that reduce plant diversity are associated with floral resource and pollinator declines. Establishing wildflower plantings is a major conservation strategy targeting pollinators, the success of which depends on long-term persistence of seeded floral communities. However, most pollinator-oriented seeding projects are monitored for a few years, making it difficult to evaluate the longevity of such interventions. Selecting plant species to provide pollinators diverse arrays of floral resources throughout their activity season is often limited by budgetary constraints and other conservation priorities. To evaluate the long-term persistence of prairie vegetation seeded to support pollinators, we sowed wildflower seed mixes into plots on a degraded reclaimed strip-mine landscape in central Ohio, USA. We examined how pollinator habitat quality, measured as floral abundance and diversity, changed over 10 years (2009-2019) in the absence of management, over the course of the blooming season within each year, and across three seed mixes containing different numbers and combinations of flowering plant species. Seeded species floral abundance declined by more than 75% over the study, with the largest decline occurring between the fifth and seventh summers. Native and non-native adventive flowering plants quickly colonized the plots and represented >50% of floral community abundances on average. Floral richness remained relatively constant throughout the study, with a small peak one year after plot establishment. Plots seeded with High-Diversity Mixes averaged two or three more species per plot compared with a Low-Diversity Mix, despite having been seeded with twice as many plant species. Within years, the abundance and diversity of seeded species were lowest early in the blooming season and increased monotonically from June to August. Adventive species exhibited the opposite trend, such that complementary abundance patterns of seeded and adventive species blooms resulted in a relatively constant floral abundance across the growing season. Seeded plant communities followed classic successional patterns in which annual species quickly established and flowered but were replaced by perennial species after the first few summers. Long-term data on establishment and persistence of flower species can guide species selection for future-oriented pollinator habitat restorations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew H Lybbert
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, 318 West 12th Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, 43202, USA
- Department of Biology, Methodist University, 5400 Ramsey St., Fayetteville, North Carolina, 28311, USA
| | - Sarah J Cusser
- Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University, 3700 East Gull Lake Rd, Hickory Corner, Michigan, 49007, USA
- Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, 05405, USA
| | - Keng-Lou James Hung
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, 318 West 12th Avenue, Columbus, Ohio, 43202, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3B2, Canada
| | - Karen Goodell
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, 1179 University Drive, Newark, Ohio, 43055, USA
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Tyndall J. Prairie and tree planting tool-PT 2 (1.0): a conservation decision support tool for Iowa, USA. AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS 2021; 96:49-64. [PMID: 38624922 PMCID: PMC8507355 DOI: 10.1007/s10457-021-00686-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2021] [Accepted: 09/13/2021] [Indexed: 04/17/2024]
Abstract
This article overviews the prairie and tree planting tool or PT2 (1.0), an online GIS-based decision support tool for landowners interested in exploring opportunities to plant prairie or trees in and around their farm fields for conservation or production purposes. PT2 1.0 can be found online at: https://pt2.nrem.iastate.edu/. With the PT2 (1.0) users locate farm fields of interest in an online aerial photograph and mapping geographic information system (GIS). Users explore areas they are considering for prairie or tree cover by examining different data layers: soil maps, 2-foot contour topography maps, LiDAR hillshade maps, and a map of current land values based on estimated land rent. Users then utilize scaled dimensional drawing tools to measure and delineate areas of interest for planting trees and or prairie. Once an area is delineated, users select from drop-down menus prairie seed mixes or woody species that are suitable for the soils present, and users can select basic long-term management options. PT2 (1.0) estimates total annualized costs for tree or prairie establishment, long-term management, and opportunity costs (based on area weighted expected soil rent), and factors in the potential benefit of utilizing government cost-share programming, e.g., Environmental Quality Incentive Program or the Conservation Reserve Program. Key data layers are currently functional in Iowa, likewise the financial data underlying the cost analysis are specific to Iowa. PT2 (1.0) is, however, open source and open code and guidance is provided regarding how to access and adapt the data for use in other states. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10457-021-00686-8.
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Chan KMA, Satterfield T. The maturation of ecosystem services: Social and policy research expands, but whither biophysically informed valuation? PEOPLE AND NATURE 2020. [DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10137] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Kai M. A. Chan
- Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability The University of British Columbia Vancouver BC Canada
| | - Terre Satterfield
- Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability The University of British Columbia Vancouver BC Canada
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Larsen D, Tyndall JC, Schulte LA, Grudens-Schuck N. Exploring Stakeholder Consensus for Multiple Outcomes in Agriculture: An Iowa Case Study. FRONTIERS IN SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 2019. [DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2019.00110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
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Schulte LA, Niemi J, Helmers MJ, Liebman M, Arbuckle JG, James DE, Kolka RK, O'Neal ME, Tomer MD, Tyndall JC, Asbjornsen H, Drobney P, Neal J, Van Ryswyk G, Witte C. Prairie strips improve biodiversity and the delivery of multiple ecosystem services from corn-soybean croplands. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2017; 114:11247-11252. [PMID: 28973922 PMCID: PMC5651729 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1620229114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 148] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services from agricultural lands remain important challenges in the United States despite decades of spending on natural resource management. To date, conservation investment has emphasized engineering practices or vegetative strategies centered on monocultural plantings of nonnative plants, largely excluding native species from cropland. In a catchment-scale experiment, we quantified the multiple effects of integrating strips of native prairie species amid corn and soybean crops, with prairie strips arranged to arrest run-off on slopes. Replacing 10% of cropland with prairie strips increased biodiversity and ecosystem services with minimal impacts on crop production. Compared with catchments containing only crops, integrating prairie strips into cropland led to greater catchment-level insect taxa richness (2.6-fold), pollinator abundance (3.5-fold), native bird species richness (2.1-fold), and abundance of bird species of greatest conservation need (2.1-fold). Use of prairie strips also reduced total water runoff from catchments by 37%, resulting in retention of 20 times more soil and 4.3 times more phosphorus. Corn and soybean yields for catchments with prairie strips decreased only by the amount of the area taken out of crop production. Social survey results indicated demand among both farming and nonfarming populations for the environmental outcomes produced by prairie strips. If federal and state policies were aligned to promote prairie strips, the practice would be applicable to 3.9 million ha of cropland in Iowa alone.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa A Schulte
- Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011;
| | - Jarad Niemi
- Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011
| | - Matthew J Helmers
- Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011
| | - Matt Liebman
- Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011
| | | | - David E James
- National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, Ames, IA 50011
| | - Randall K Kolka
- Northern Research Station, US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Grand Rapids, MN 55744
| | | | - Mark D Tomer
- National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, Ames, IA 50011
| | - John C Tyndall
- Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011
| | - Heidi Asbjornsen
- Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824
| | - Pauline Drobney
- Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Prairie City, IA 50228
| | - Jeri Neal
- Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011
| | | | - Chris Witte
- Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011
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Lindborg R, Gordon LJ, Malinga R, Bengtsson J, Peterson G, Bommarco R, Deutsch L, Gren Å, Rundlöf M, Smith HG. How spatial scale shapes the generation and management of multiple ecosystem services. Ecosphere 2017. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.1741] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Regina Lindborg
- Department of Physical Geography Stockholm University 106 91 Stockholm Sweden
- Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) Wallenberg Research Centre Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch 7599 South Africa
| | - Line J. Gordon
- Stockholm Resilience Centre Stockholm University 106 91 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Rebecka Malinga
- Stockholm Resilience Centre Stockholm University 106 91 Stockholm Sweden
- Centre for Water Resources Research University of KwaZulu‐Natal Durban 4041 South Africa
| | - Jan Bengtsson
- Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) Wallenberg Research Centre Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch 7599 South Africa
- Department of Ecology Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences 750 07 Uppsala Sweden
| | - Garry Peterson
- Stockholm Resilience Centre Stockholm University 106 91 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Riccardo Bommarco
- Department of Ecology Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences 750 07 Uppsala Sweden
| | - Lisa Deutsch
- Stockholm Resilience Centre Stockholm University 106 91 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Åsa Gren
- Beijer Institute 114 18 Stockholm Sweden
| | - Maj Rundlöf
- Department of Biology Lund University 223 62 Lund Sweden
| | - Henrik G. Smith
- Beijer Institute 114 18 Stockholm Sweden
- Department of Biology Lund University 223 62 Lund Sweden
- Centre for Environmental and Climate Research Lund University 223 62 Lund Sweden
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Wheelock MJ, Rey KP, O'Neal ME. Defining the Insect Pollinator Community Found in Iowa Corn and Soybean Fields: Implications for Pollinator Conservation. ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY 2016; 45:1099-1106. [PMID: 27516433 DOI: 10.1093/ee/nvw087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2015] [Accepted: 06/24/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Although corn (Zea mays L.) and soybeans (Glycine max L.) do not require pollination, they offer floral resources used by insect pollinators. We asked if a similar community of insect pollinators visits these crops in central Iowa, a landscape dominated by corn and soybean production. We used modified pan traps (i.e., bee bowls) in both corn and soybean fields during anthesis and used nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMS) to compare the communities found in the two crops. Summed across both crops, 6,704 individual insects were captured representing at least 60 species, morphospecies, or higher-level taxa. Thirty-four species were collected in both crops, 19 collected only in corn and seven were collected only in soybean. The most abundant taxa were Lasioglossum [Dialictus] spp., Agapostemon virescens Cresson, Melissodes bimaculata (Lepeletier), and Toxomerus marginatus (Say), which accounted for 65% of the insect pollinators collected from both crops. Although social bees (Apis mellifera L. and Bombus spp.) were found in both crops, they accounted for only 0.5% of all insects captured. The NMS analysis revealed a shared community of pollinators composed of mostly solitary, ground nesting bees. Many of these species have been found in other crop fields throughout North America. Although corn and soybean are grown in landscapes that are often highly disturbed, these data suggest that a community of pollinators can persist within them. We suggest approaches to conserving this community based on partnering with activities that aim to lessen the environmental impact of annual crop production.
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Affiliation(s)
- M J Wheelock
- Department of Entomology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 (; )
| | - K P Rey
- Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011
| | - M E O'Neal
- Department of Entomology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 (; )
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Gachango FG, Pedersen SM, Kjaergaard C. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Surface Flow Constructed Wetlands (SFCW) for Nutrient Reduction in Drainage Discharge from Agricultural Fields in Denmark. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 2015; 56:1478-1486. [PMID: 26239649 DOI: 10.1007/s00267-015-0585-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2015] [Accepted: 07/25/2015] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
Constructed wetlands have been proposed as cost-effective and more targeted technologies in the reduction of nitrogen and phosphorous water pollution in drainage losses from agricultural fields in Denmark. Using two pig farms and one dairy farm situated in a pumped lowland catchment as case studies, this paper explores the feasibility of implementing surface flow constructed wetlands (SFCW) based on their cost effectiveness. Sensitivity analysis is conducted by varying the cost elements of the wetlands in order to establish the most cost-effective scenario and a comparison with the existing nutrients reduction measures carried out. The analyses show that the cost effectiveness of the SFCW is higher in the drainage catchments with higher nutrient loads. The range of the cost effectiveness ratio on nitrogen reduction differs distinctively with that of catch crop measure. The study concludes that SFCW could be a better optimal nutrients reduction measure in drainage catchments characterized with higher nutrient loads.
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Affiliation(s)
- F G Gachango
- Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Rølighedsvej 25, 1958, Frederiksberg, Denmark.
| | - S M Pedersen
- Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Rølighedsvej 25, 1958, Frederiksberg, Denmark
| | - C Kjaergaard
- Department of Agroecology - Soil Physics and Hydropedology, Aarhus University, Blichers Allé 20, 8830, Tjele, Denmark
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Ecologies of Scale: Multifunctionality Connects Conservation and Agriculture across Fields, Farms, and Landscapes. LAND 2014. [DOI: 10.3390/land3030739] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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