the GlobalChangeBiology blog

MED-GOLD ( Turning climate-related information into added value for traditional MEDiterranean Grape, OLive, and Durum wheat food systems ) will demonstrate the proof-of-concept for climate services in the agriculture sector by developing case studies for three hallmarks of the Mediterranean food system: grapes, olives, and durum wheat.  Agriculture is primarily climate-driven and hence highly vulnerable to climate variability and change. Evidence suggests that the Mediterranean region is under immediate threat of shifting climate patterns and the associated ecological, economic and social effects. Developing a capacity to turn the increasingly big climate-related data into tailored climate services that can inform decision-making in agriculture is, therefore, a priority both in Europe and worldwide. The long-term goal of this project is to make European agriculture and food systems more competitive, resilient, and efficient in the face of climate change, by using climate serv...

Climate change is impacting agroecosystems widely. Ecological connectivity makes regions more resilient and hence helps conserve biodiversity and combat climate change, while ecologically sound analysis and management help keep agroecosystems alive. In this context, a bioeconomic approach may help guide the integration of natural and human systems. In Umbria, the origin of this approach was the opening lecture of TreviNatura (Trevi, Italy 25-27 October 2015) delivered by Professor Andrew P. Gutierrez ( CASAS Global ) and titled  " The economy of nature and humans: the role of ecosystem services " that illustrated the often conflicting interaction between humans and nature, and how this interaction can be best understood using bioeconomics, with ecosystem services playing a central role. The region of Umbria in Central Italy is particularly amenable to developing and implementing a holistic approach to the integrated management of agricultural and natural ecosystems, because t...

This paper is a critique of Srivastava and Kolady (Current Science, 2016; 110: 3-10) who reported a macro analysis of the benefits of Bt cotton in India using statewide average data. The analysis is in error with respect to the economic benefits, biological underpinnings, and the effects of Bt cotton technology adoption on resource-poor farmers growing rainfed cotton. Viable non-GMO high-density cotton alternatives that increase yields, reduce cost of production, and give higher net average returns were ignored. The authors argue for biotechnology adoption in other crops in India without providing data or analysis Gutierrez A.P., Ponti L., Baumgärtner, J., 2017. A critique on the paper ‘Agricultural biotechnology and crop productivity: macro-level evidences on contribution of Bt cotton in India’. Current Science, 112: 690-693. Full text free to download Trends for cotton yield, pesticide use and the percentage of total cotton growing area planted to Bt cotton.

Yellow starthistle ( Centaurea solstitialis L.) (YST) is an invasive weed native to the Mediterranean region with a geographical centre of diversity in Turkey. It is widely established in Chile, Australia, and western North America. It arrived in California as a contaminant in alfalfa seed in 1859 and, by 2002, had infested more than 7.7 million hectares in the U.S.A. Biological control of YST using capitula feeding weevils, picture wing flies and a foliar rust pathogen has been ongoing in the western U.S.A. for more than three decades with limited success. Modelling and field research suggest natural enemies that kill whole plants and/or reduce seed production of survivors are good candidates for successful biological control. A candidate species with some of these attributes is the rosette weevil Ceratapion basicorne (Illiger). In the present study, a model of the rosette weevil is added to an extant system model of YST and its capitula feeding natural enemies and, in a GIS context...

The workshop " When Space Meets Agriculture " aimed at promoting a better understanding of the significance and potential of Europe’s space systems (EGNOS/Galileo and Copernicus) for the agricultural sector. While introducing Rural Development Programmes of selected regions and exploring opportunities to set synergies for the development of space applications for the agriculture sector, it will present the main strands of the European Agriculture Policy and more generally link the space community to the agriculture community. Our contribution identified recent and prospective holistic analyses of climate change effects on crop-pest systems in the Mediterranean Basin. The approach used in the analyses involves using physiologically based demographic modeling (PBDM) of crop-pest-natural enemy interactions in the context of a geographic information system (GIS). A major goal is to link the PBDM/GIS technology with increasingly available biophysical datasets from global modeling ...

Climate change will make assessing and managing crop-pest systems in the Mediterranean Basin more difficult than elsewhere on the globe. The Basin is in many ways a hot spot of global change, as higher than average projected climate change threatens an extremely rich and intertwined biological and cultural diversity, and increases its vulnerability to biological invasions. As a consequence, pest problems in this hot spot will require a holistic approach to deconstruct the elusive complex interactions that are the underpinning basis for sound decision making at the field level. Building on 30+ years of multidisciplinary progress inspired by pioneering work at University of California , the ENEA GlobalChangeBiology project in collaboration with CASAS Global is developing an interdisciplinary tool to mechanistically describe (i.e., model), analyze and manage agro-ecological problems based on the unifying paradigm that all organisms including humans acquire and allocate resources by analog...

The polyphagous Asian vinegar fly Drosophila suzukii (spotted wing Drosophila) is a native of Eastern and Southeastern Asia. It emerged as an important invasive insect pest of berries and stone fruits in the Americas and Europe beginning in 2008. Species distribution models are commonly used for analyzing the extant and potential range expansion of invasive species. Previous modeling efforts for D. suzukii include a degree-day model, a MaxEnt ecological niche model, a demographic model incorporating the effects of temperature, and a preliminary mechanistic physiologically-based demographic model (PBDM). In the present analysis, we refine the PBDM for D. suzukii based on biological data reported in the literature. The PBDM is used to assess the effects of temperature and relative humidity from a recently published global climate dataset (AgMERRA) on the prospective geographic distribution and relative abundance of the pest in the USA and Mexico, and in Europe and the Mediterranean Ba...