Ecologies, Volume 2, Issue 4 (December 2021) – 5 articles

More than half of the world’s population consumes rice. Recently, the area sown with modern rice varieties has expanded, and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has increased in various countries. Wetland hydrology is also influenced by chemical and physical characteristics. Hence, this research focused on temporal and spatial changes in crop patterns, input usage, and hydrology in the Ethiopian Fogera floodplain, with the following objectives: (a) What are the spatial and temporal trends in crop production patterns? (b) What input changes have occurred to produce rice and other crops? (c) What hydrological changes have occurred in the area with intensification of production systems? Primary data were gathered through a questionnaire, focus group discussions, interviews, and field observations. Secondary data were obtained from Landsat imageries, the SWAT model, water flow measurements, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). NDVI results indicated that the area cultivated for rice is increasing while the area of other crops is decreasing. Agricultural inputs are used in rice systems but were not used before the introduction of rice. Recession farming activities have also diminished wetland areas. Water flow showed a decrease, whereas Nitrogen and Phosphorus showed an increase with Pearson’s correlation values −0.069 and −0.072, respectively. Flow of water was negatively correlated with N and P water concentration, whereas N and P contents were positively correlated. In conclusion, growth of intensive rice systems has had negative environmental consequences on wetland ecology. Therefore, policies to regulate and manage wetland uses are recommended. Full article

The study of ecosystem services (ES) is becoming increasingly popular, as it plays an important role in human wellbeing, economic growth, and livelihoods. The primary goal of this research is to investigate the global trend in ES research using a rigorous systematic review of highly cited articles. The articles for this study were extracted from Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E), Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) databases of Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) covering the period from 2000 to 2020. This study was limited to SCI-E, ESCI, and SSCI databases of the Web of Science. The term “ecosystem service/s” has been used as a research term to filter the study sample and eliminate other databases from the analysis. A citation level equal to or greater than 200 was used to further filtration of articles. This query could restrict to 128 articles that are highly cited in the selected period. Bibliometric analysis results show that, according to the author’s keywords, the “ecosystem service/s” keyword is highly connected to the “biodiversity”, “valuation”, “marine spatial planning”, and “conservation planning”. The U.S.A., Canada, China, France, and Australia are the leading countries in the cumulative number of highly cited articles and networks of co-authors. The U.S.A. is a strong contributor to ES research with China, Canada, and France. The most productive universities linked to the United States were the University of Minnesota, the University of California-Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara), and the Chinese Academy of Science. The most significant and compelling author is Halpern S Benjamin, who represents UC Santa Barbara. He has earned international recognition for a model he developed to analyze global data sets of anthropogenic drivers of ecological change in marine environments. The most accessed and studied fields in the ES are terrestrial, urban, and marine environments. Full article

(1) Background: Desertification is one of the most important environmental impacts around the world. In the semiarid grassland of North of Chile, overgrazing has deep effects on arid lands and consequently on its economy and social development. It is necessary to conduct very detailed studies to determine how the climate, the botanical composition and the grazing system affects this process; (2) Methods: In this paper, we have determined the effect on arid grasslands of three goat managements: exclusions, continuous and deferred grazing on forage biomass, richness, Berger–Parker’s dominance and Shannon’s diversity. This study was developed in Las Cardas Range Station (CEALC) of the University of Chile in the Coquimbo region. The effect of annual and seasonal rainfall on biomass, diversity, richness and dominance parameters was determined; (3) Results: Allochthonous, endemic and native species showed significant changes both for seasonal and annual precipitation. In contrast, the grazing system only affected dominance and biomass of native and endemic species. Deferred grazing was the only management system that increased overall biomass productivity, especially on the best forage plant species. Exclusions showed a positive influence on more endangered species, which were the most vulnerable to goat overgrazing; (4) Conclusions: In consequence, we proposed a network of areas under deferred grazing combined with exclusions. This strategy can increase simultaneously forage productivity, grassland conservation and preservation of associated resources as hunting and wildlife tourism. Moreover, this strategy of range management will allow the sustainability of community of farmers in one of the poorest and most desertified areas in South America. Full article

To examine the variation in water and vegetation coverage areas, the groundwater level and plant diversity in the terminal lake of the Tarim River, northwest China, both the monitoring data of a field survey consisting of surface samples and remote sensing data for 20 years (2000–2019) were analyzed by using field survey and indoor remote sensing methods. The results showed that (1): from 2000 to 2019, water and vegetation areas increased significantly, especially the trend of vegetation areas becoming more significant, with an average annual increase of 13.9 km²/a; (2): the plant diversity increased first and then decreased; the species richness and Pielou index in the study area were 9.0 and 0.80 in 2005, but only 2.00 and 0.08 in 2000, respectively; species composition tends to be simplified; (3): with the increase in the lake area, the groundwater level showed an up-lifted trend; the correlation between the two was significant, but there was a lag in the response of the groundwater level. Full article

Climate change is having a significant impact on the global ecosystem and is likely to become increasingly important as this phenomenon intensifies. Numerous studies in climate change impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and ecosystem services in China have been published in recent decades. However, a comprehensive review of the topic is needed to provide an improved understanding of the history and driving mechanisms of environmental changes within the region. Here we review the evidence for changes in climate and the peer-reviewed literature that assesses climate change impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem, and ecosystem services at a China scale. Our main conclusions are as follows. (1) Most of the evidence shows that climate change (the increasing extreme events) is affecting the change of productivity, species interactions, and biological invasions, especially in the agro-pastoral transition zone and fragile ecological area in Northern China. (2) The individuals and populations respond to climate change through changes in behavior, functions, and geographic scope. (3) The impact of climate change on most types of services (provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural) in China is mainly negative and brings threats and challenges to human well-being and natural resource management, therefore, requiring costly societal adjustments. In general, although great progress has been made, the management strategies still need to be further improved. Integrating climate change into ecosystem services assessment and natural resource management is still a major challenge. Moving forward, it is necessary to evaluate and research the effectiveness of typical demonstration cases, which will contribute to better scientific management of natural resources in China and the world. Full article