How much do we really lose?—Yield losses in the proximity of natural landscape elements in agricultural landscapes

Natural landscape elements (NLEs) in agricultural landscapes contribute to biodiversity and ecosystem services, but are also regarded as an obstacle for large‐scale agricultural production. However, the effects of NLEs on crop yield have rarely been measured. Here, we investigated how different bordering structures, such as agricultural roads, field‐to‐field borders, forests, hedgerows, and kettle holes, influence agricultural yields. We hypothesized that (a) yield values at field borders differ from mid‐field yields and that (b) the extent of this change in yields depends on the bordering structure. We measured winter wheat yields along transects with log‐scaled distances from the border into the agricultural field within two intensively managed agricultural landscapes in Germany (2014 near Göttingen, and 2015–2017 in the Uckermark). We observed a yield loss adjacent to every investigated bordering structure of 11%–38% in comparison with mid‐field yields. However, depending on the bordering structure, this yield loss disappeared at different distances. While the proximity of kettle holes did not affect yields more than neighboring agricultural fields, woody landscape elements had strong effects on winter wheat yields. Notably, 95% of mid‐field yields could already be reached at a distance of 11.3 m from a kettle hole and at a distance of 17.8 m from hedgerows as well as forest borders. Our findings suggest that yield losses are especially relevant directly adjacent to woody landscape elements, but not adjacent to in‐field water bodies. This highlights the potential to simultaneously counteract yield losses close to the field border and enhance biodiversity by combining different NLEs in agricultural landscapes such as creating strips of extensive grassland vegetation between woody landscape elements and agricultural fields. In conclusion, our results can be used to quantify ecocompensations to find optimal solutions for the delivery of productive and regulative ecosystem services in heterogeneous agricultural landscapes

Severe plastic deformation for producing superfunctional ultrafine-grained and heterostructured materials: An interdisciplinary review

Ultrafine-grained and heterostructured materials are currently of high interest due to their superior mechanical and functional properties. Severe plastic deformation (SPD) is one of the most effective methods to produce such materials with unique microstructure-property relationships. In this review paper, after summarizing the recent progress in developing various SPD methods for processing bulk, surface and powder of materials, the main structural and microstructural features of SPD-processed materials are explained including lattice defects, grain boundaries and phase transformations. The properties and potential applications of SPD-processed materials are then reviewed in detail including tensile properties, creep, superplasticity, hydrogen embrittlement resistance, electrical conductivity, magnetic properties, optical properties, solar energy harvesting, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, hydrolysis, hydrogen storage, hydrogen production, CO2 conversion, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. It is shown that achieving such properties is not limited to pure metals and conventional metallic alloys, and a wide range of materials are currently processed by SPD, including high-entropy alloys, glasses, semiconductors, ceramics and polymers. It is particularly emphasized that SPD has moved from a simple metal processing tool to a powerful means for the discovery and synthesis of new superfunctional metallic and nonmetallic materials. The article ends by declaring that the borders of SPD have been extended from materials science and it has become an interdisciplinary tool to address scientific questions such as the mechanisms of geological and astronomical phenomena and the origin of life

Applying special heterogeneity indices in changing landscapes in the Czech Republic

Many very different approaches to landscape patterns are used all over the world in landscape ecology, landscape planning and management. Intensive development of geographical information systems in the last decade has meant increasing interest in analysing landscape changes. GIS has enabled quantification of the spatial changes in large areas, and the provision of much more representative results. However, implementation of the results into landscape planning and management is still not satisfactory. Proposals for analysing changes in land use and the attributes of landscape patterns have been developed and tested in four study areas representing different landscape types. Changes in landscape patterns based on land use are monitored between 1845 and 2000. The results show various rates of simplification of land-use patterns in all study areas, taking into consideration natural conditions and human activities. We conclude that spatial heterogeneity is a relevant criterion for landscape planning, design and conservation, and for defining management principles in order to maintain the biodiversity and aesthetic values of the landscape

Microstructure Mechanisms Governing the Creep Life of Ultrafine-Grained Cu-0.2 wt%Zr Alloy

Equal-channel angular pressing was conducted at room temperature and extrusion was performed up to 12 passes using route where the billets were rotated by 90° in the same sense between consecutive passes. Tensile creep tests were performed at 473, 573 and 673 K at different constant applied stresses. It was observed that the original coarse grain size of unprocessed alloy was reduced to 0.3 μm after 8 equal-channel angular pressing passes and the grain growth during creep was restricted by precipitates with the mean diameter ≈ 4.0 nm. No significant effect on creep resistance was found after one equal-channel angular pressing pass at 473 and 573 K. However, the longest time to fracture was exhibited by alloy after 2 equal-channel angular pressing passes at 573 and 673 K but with further increasing number of equal-channel angular pressing passes a decrease in the time to fracture was observed. Nevertheless, the beneficial effect of equal-channel angular pressing on creep resistance was still documented after 8 passes for temperatures of 473 and 573 K. By contrast, creep tests performed at 673 K showed that the time to fracture of ultrafine-grained material is shorter as compared with that for as-received state. The 3D laser measurement of surface showed that the creep fracture process is accelerated by formation of vertical surface step relief and cavitation at the intersection of the shear bands during creep

Microstructure Mechanisms Governing the Creep Life of Ultrafine-Grained Cu-0.2 wt%Zr Alloy

Equal-channel angular pressing was conducted at room temperature and extrusion was performed up to 12 passes using route where the billets were rotated by 90° in the same sense between consecutive passes. Tensile creep tests were performed at 473, 573 and 673 K at different constant applied stresses. It was observed that the original coarse grain size of unprocessed alloy was reduced to 0.3 μm after 8 equal-channel angular pressing passes and the grain growth during creep was restricted by precipitates with the mean diameter ≈ 4.0 nm. No significant effect on creep resistance was found after one equal-channel angular pressing pass at 473 and 573 K. However, the longest time to fracture was exhibited by alloy after 2 equal-channel angular pressing passes at 573 and 673 K but with further increasing number of equal-channel angular pressing passes a decrease in the time to fracture was observed. Nevertheless, the beneficial effect of equal-channel angular pressing on creep resistance was still documented after 8 passes for temperatures of 473 and 573 K. By contrast, creep tests performed at 673 K showed that the time to fracture of ultrafine-grained material is shorter as compared with that for as-received state. The 3D laser measurement of surface showed that the creep fracture process is accelerated by formation of vertical surface step relief and cavitation at the intersection of the shear bands during creep

Factors influencing creep flow and ductility in ultrafine-grained metals

The creep behaviour of high purity aluminium and copper and their Al–0.2 wt%Sc and Cu–0.2 wt%Zr alloys was examined after processing by equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) with an emphasis on creep ductility and the ECAP microstructural homogeneity. It was found that, under the same loading conditions, the creep ductility of the ultrafine-grained materials processed by ECAP continually increases with increasing numbers of ECAP passes. A detailed quantitative microstructural study was conducted using the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) methods. This analysis revealed that, with increasing numbers of ECAP passes, the mutual misorientation of neighbouring subgrains grows and the subgrains continuously transform to grains having high-angle grain boundarie

Influence of Long-term Annealing and Hot Bending on Creep of P92 Pipe

This work is focused on the creep behaviour of the thick-walled hot bended P92 pipe, with an outer diameter of 350 mm and wall thickness of 39 mm, in its different parts, namely in straight parts and bends. Selected creep specimens machined from axial section of pipe were thermally aged at 650°C to simulate microstructure degradation typical for long-term service conditions. Subsequent tensile creep tests at constant load were performed at 600°C under 140 MPa and creep behaviour of various structure states was compared. Microstructure was investigated by scanning electron microscopy equipped with electron backscatter diffraction. It was found that ageing at 650°C for 10⁴ h caused the significant reduction of creep resistance down to about 10% of initial state and an additional slight reduction of creep resistance after longer ageing for 2×10⁴ h. Further, creep behaviour was significantly influenced by specimen position in the extrados and intrados parts of bends. Microstructure investigation revealed that long-term annealing has negligible effect on high-angle grain boundary spacing and misorientation. By contrast, creep deformation of long-term annealed specimens led to significant decreasing in high-angle grain boundary spacing and caused a change in the misorientation distribution of boundaries