Response of wild bee diversity, abundance, and functional traits to vineyard inter-row management intensity and landscape diversity across Europe

Agricultural intensification is a major driver of wild bee decline. Vineyards may be inhabited by plant and animal species, especially when the inter-row space is vegetated with spontaneous vegetation or cover crops. Wild bees depend on floral resources and suitable nesting sites which may be found in vineyard inter-rows or in viticultural landscapes. Inter-row vegetation is managed by mulching, tillage, and/or herbicide application and results in habitat degradation when applied intensively. Here, we hypothesize that lower vegetation management intensities, higher floral resources, and landscape diversity affect wild bee diversity and abundance dependent on their functional traits. We sampled wild bees semi-quantitatively in 63 vineyards representing different vegetation management intensities across Europe in 2016. A proxy for floral resource availability was based on visual flower cover estimations. Management intensity was assessed by vegetation cover (%) twice a year per vineyard. The Shannon Landscape Diversity Index was used as a proxy for landscape diversity within a 750 m radius around each vineyard center point. Wild bee communities were clustered by country. At the country level, between 20 and 64 wild bee species were identified. Increased floral resource availability and extensive vegetation management both affected wild bee diversity and abundance in vineyards strongly positively. Increased landscape diversity had a small positive effect on wild bee diversity but compensated for the negative effect of low floral resource availability by increasing eusocial bee abundance. We conclude that wild bee diversity and abundance in vineyards is efficiently promoted by increasing floral resources and reducing vegetation management frequency. High landscape diversity further compensates for low floral resources in vineyards and increases pollinating insect abundance in viticulture landscapes.AustrianScienceFund,Grant/AwardNumber:I2044-B25;BundesministeriumfürBildungundForschung;UnitateaExecutivapentruFinantareaInvatamantuluiSuperior,aCercetarii,DezvoltariisiInovarii;MinisteriodeEconomíayCompetitividad;AgenceNationaledelaRecherchePeer Reviewe

Landscape elements, field evaluation and perception of stakeholders of the Appellation of Origin "Montilla-Moriles"

Trabajo presentado en la EGU General Assembly 2019, celebrada en Viena del 3 al 8 de mayo de 2019.There are many studies assessing the regulating ecosystem services of cover crops in woody crops (e.g. soilfertility or erosion control) but rarely the landscape and their associated cultural ecosystem services have beenevaluated, especially in relatively small agricultural areas. The region is in southern Spain and encompass 17municipalities with a surface of 5052 ha of vines assigned to the Appellation.Within the project VineDivers, several studies were carried out in the region at different spatial scales(from landscape to vineyard): i) elaboration of an inventory of the landscape elements of one representativemunicipality (Aguilar de la Frontera) [1], ii) digitization and analysis of landscape buffers corresponding to 750m circles radius around the centroid of 16 commercial vineyards [2], and iii) field measurements of vegetationinter-rows at the vineyards under a range of soil management intensities [3]. Furthermore, iv) stakeholders weresurveyed to study if landscape complexity and soil management practices provide cultural ecosystem services [4,5].This communication presents the results obtained from these studies. Numerous possible areas of actionhave been identified in which the implementation of diversification measures of the landscape elements wouldbe essential for controlling erosion and preserving environmental sustainability. Olive orchards are the dominantlandscape elements around the studied vineyards. Our results highlighted the effect of landscape complexity andsoil management intensity on cultural ecosystem services provision. In general terms, the interrow managementof the vineyards and vegetation typology determines the appreciation of the landscape by the respondents, beingaesthetically better valued the cover crop vineyards

Parallel ionoregulatory adjustments underlie phenotypic plasticity and evolution of Drosophila cold tolerance.

Low temperature tolerance is the main predictor of variation in the global distribution and performance of insects, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying cold tolerance variation are poorly known, and it is unclear whether the mechanisms that improve cold tolerance within the lifetime of an individual insect are similar to those that underlie evolved differences among species. The accumulation of cold-induced injuries by hemimetabolous insects is associated with loss of Na(+) and K(+) homeostasis. Here we show that this model holds true for Drosophila; cold exposure increases haemolymph [K(+)] in D. melanogaster, and cold-acclimated flies maintain low haemolymph [Na(+)] and [K(+)], both at rest and during a cold exposure. This pattern holds across 24 species of the Drosophila phylogeny, where improvements in cold tolerance have been consistently paired with reductions in haemolymph [Na(+)] and [K(+)]. Cold-acclimated D. melanogaster have low activity of Na(+)/K(+)-ATPase, which may contribute to the maintenance of low haemolymph [Na(+)] and underlie improvements in cold tolerance. Modifications to ion balance are associated with both phenotypic plasticity within D. melanogaster and evolutionary differences in cold tolerance across the Drosophila phylogeny, which suggests that adaptation and acclimation of cold tolerance in insects may occur through similar mechanisms. Cold-tolerant flies maintain haemolymph osmolality despite low haemolymph [Na(+)] and [K(+)], possibly through modest accumulations of organic osmolytes. We propose that this could have served as an evolutionary route by which chill-susceptible insects developed more extreme cold tolerance strategies

Landscape elements, field evaluation and perception of stakeholders of the Appellation of Origin “Montilla-Moriles”

International audienc

Landscape elements, field evaluation and perception of stakeholders of the Appellation of Origin “Montilla-Moriles”

International audienc

Landscape elements, field evaluation and perception of stakeholders of the Appellation of Origin “Montilla-Moriles”

International audienc

Determination of soil cover and management factor (C) for RUSLE and evaluation of erosion risk in vineyards at five vine growing regions across Europe with different soil management intensities

International audienc

Determination of soil cover and management factor (C) for RUSLE and evaluation of erosion risk in vineyards at five vine growing regions across Europe with different soil management intensities

International audienc

Vineyard cover crop management strategies and their effect on soil properties across Europe

International audienceVineyard soils are often of inherently poor quality with low organic carbon content. Management can improve soil properties and thus soil fertility. In European wine‐growing regions, a broad range of inter‐row management strategies evolved based on specific local site conditions and the varying effects of management intensities on soil, water balance, yield and grape quality. Accordingly, there is a need to investigate the effects of locally common cover crop management strategies and tillage intensity on soil organic carbon content and soil physical parameters. In this study, we investigated the impact of the most common inter‐row management practices in Austria, France, Romania and Spain. In all countries, we compared paired sites. Each site with cover crops and inter‐row management of low intensity was compared with one site with (temporarily) bare soil and high management intensity. All studied sites with cover crops and low management intensity, except those in Spain, had higher organic carbon contents than the paired more intensively managed vineyards. However, the highly water‐limited Spanish vineyards with temporary cover crops had lower organic carbon contents than the paired sites with bare soil. Sites with more organic carbon had better results for bulk density, percolation stability (PS), hydraulic conductivity and available soil water, with soil hydraulic parameters being less pronounced than others. Country comparison of inter‐row weed control systems showed that PS was particularly low in sampled vineyards in Romania and Spain, where weed control is based on intensive mechanical tillage. Alternating management systems with tillage every second inter‐row showed a decrease in soil structure compared with permanent green cover. Thus, inter‐row management with cover crops and reduced tillage increases soil organic carbon content and improves soil structure compared with bare soil management. If local constraints, such as water scarcity, do not allow year‐round planting, alternating inter‐row management with several years of alternating periods may be an option to mitigate those adverse effects. However, negative impact on the soil structure occurs with the very first tillage operation, whereas negative effects on the carbon balance only appear after long‐term use of tillage

Evaluation of soil erosion risk and identification of soil cover and management factor (C) for RUSLE in European vineyards with different soil management

International audienceVineyards show some of the largest erosion rates reported in agricultural areas in Europe. Reported rates vary considerably under the same land use, since erosion processes are highly affected by climate, soil, topography and by the adopted soil management practices. Literature also shows differences in the effect of same conservation practices on reducing soil erosion from conventional, bare soil based, management. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) is commonly adopted to estimate rates of water erosion on cropland under different forms of land use and management, but it requires proper value of soil cover and management (C) factors in order to obtain a reliable evaluation of local soil erosion rates. In this study the ORUSCAL (Orchard RUSle CALibration) is used to identify the best calibration strategy against long-term experimental data. Afterwards, ORUSCAL is used in order to apply the RUSLE technology from farm based information across different European wine-growing regions. The results suggest that the best strategy for calibration should incorporate the soil moisture sub-factor (S-m) to provide better soil loss predictions. The C factor, whose average values ranged from 0.012 to 0.597, presented a large spatial variability due to coupling with local climate and specific local management. The comparison across the five wine-growing regions indicates that for the soil protection management, permanent cover crop is the best measure for accomplishing sustainable erosion rates across the studied areas. Alternate and temporary cover crops, that are used in areas of limited water resources to prevent competition with vines, failed to achieve sustainable erosion rates, that still need to be addressed. This raises the need for a careful use of C values developed under different environmental conditions. (C) 2020 International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation and China Water and Power Press. Production and Hosting by Elsevier B.V