Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Predicting how species and communities will respond to changes in global
climate (particularly, temperature and precipitation patterns) remains one of the
grand challenges in ecology. Improving our ability to make these predictions has
important consequences for agriculture because climate changes are likely to affect
crop production not just directly, but also indirectly by affecting the type and abun-
dance of pests. As crops become either more intensively managed or more widely
planted across the landscape to meet increasing demand for food and fuel, we will
be challenged to better understand how landscape factors influence the dynamics
of plant communities in agricultural landscapes. Increasing temporal variability in
precipitation and other environmental factors may make it more difficult to manage
these systems and to predict how they will respond to changes in both biotic and
abiotic drivers, including crop management practices. The work to date at the KBS
LTER—and cross-site syntheses to place it in a continental scope—provides a con-
text for further investigation on how plant communities in agricultural landscapes
can be managed to provide a wide range of ecosystem services.
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