0000000000105637
AUTHOR
Michel Loreau
Global data on earthworm abundance, biomass, diversity and corresponding environmental properties
Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provided directly by authors, were collated with information on site locations, including coordinates, habitat cover, and soil properties. Datasets were required, at a minimum, to include abundance or biomass of earthworms at a site. Where possible, site-level species lists were included, as well as the abundance and biomass of individual species and ec…
The stability of crop production: trade-offs in pollination-dependent agriculture
EAGESTAD INRA; Historically, demand for increased crop production has been satisfied by agricultural practices that include land conversion into agricultural land and improvements in crop yield. The benefits of persisting in this approach are challenged by the existence of apparent yield plateaus for many major crops and of crop yield saturating responses to increasing levels of pesticides. Notably, despite the importance of yield stability and the empirical evidence that magnitude and stability of ecosystem functions do not necessarily co-vary positively, few studies on the stability of crop yield have been attempted. Here, we develop a model for crop yield dynamics in a spatially heteroge…