Response Doctoral Program
Since the domestication of wheat about 7,500 years ago, this important crop has undergone significant changes (de Sousa et al. 2021). Through targeted breeding, high-yielding wheat varieties have been developed to feed the growing global population, but this comes at the cost of reduced genetic diversity (Balfourier et al. 2019).
Continue reading From the Himalayas to Global Fields: Preserving Wheat Diversity to Combat Yellow RustResponse Doctoral Program
Since the domestication of wheat about 7,500 years ago, this important crop has undergone significant changes (de Sousa et al. 2021). Through targeted breeding, high-yielding wheat varieties have been developed to feed the growing global population, but this comes at the cost of reduced genetic diversity (Balfourier et al. 2019).
Continue reading From the Himalayas to Global Fields: Preserving Wheat Diversity to Combat Yellow RustIn view of biodiversity loss, it is important that early-career researchers get involved not only in science but also contribute to biodiversity policy. The Blue-Green Biodiversity research initiative of Eawag and WSL organised a workshop to facilitate cooperation between science, practice and politics.
Continue reading Translating science into action and engage in biodiversity policy-makingResponse Doctoral Program
As climate change accelerates and CO2 emission reductions alone prove insufficient to meet climate targets, carbon removal has become essential for tackling hard-to-abate emissions. However, deploying carbon removal at scale presents a critical challenge for governments: How can they ensure it is both effective and affordable enough to secure public support? We show that this public support challenge can be overcome if carbon removal practices are deployed in combination with regulations that enhance the durability of CO2 removal , even if these regulations increase costs.
Continue reading Expensive but effective: Why citizens support costly but durable carbon removal practicesResponse Doctoral Program
From the Burren in Ireland and the Erins in France to the Alps in Switzerland, grasslands are vital ecosystems that play a crucial role in supporting biodiversity, providing ecosystem services, and ensuring food security. These vast and diverse grasslands are just a few of the many that cover around 17% of the European Union’s total surface area, as of 2018 (EUROSTAT 2021). Grasslands are among the most species-rich habitats on Earth (Petermann and Buzhdygan), home to a wide variety of flora and fauna, and are essential breeding grounds for birds and invertebrates. In addition, they provide numerous ecosystem services such as water purification, soil erosion prevention and carbon sequestration. Grasslands contain various species of forage grasses, crucial for feeding livestock. Forage grasses, such as Lolium spp. and Festuca spp. are valuable, environment-friendly sources of livestock feed. However, frequent and unpredictable droughts have threatened forage grass yields, posing significant challenges to farmers and livestock managers.
Continue reading Ensuring resilient grasslands: How do forage grasses tackle droughts?Response Doctoral Program
From the Burren in Ireland and the Erins in France to the Alps in Switzerland, grasslands are vital ecosystems that play a crucial role in supporting biodiversity, providing ecosystem services, and ensuring food security. These vast and diverse grasslands are just a few of the many that cover around 17% of the European Union’s total surface area, as of 2018 (EUROSTAT 2021). Grasslands are among the most species-rich habitats on Earth (Petermann and Buzhdygan), home to a wide variety of flora and fauna, and are essential breeding grounds for birds and invertebrates. In addition, they provide numerous ecosystem services such as water purification, soil erosion prevention and carbon sequestration. Grasslands contain various species of forage grasses, crucial for feeding livestock. Forage grasses, such as Lolium spp. and Festuca spp. are valuable, environment-friendly sources of livestock feed. However, frequent and unpredictable droughts have threatened forage grass yields, posing significant challenges to farmers and livestock managers.
Continue reading Ensuring resilient grasslands: How do forage grasses tackle droughts?Vom Klimawandel über den Umgang mit Pandemien bis zu geopolitischen Konflikten – in diversen Politikfeldern spielt wissenschaftliche Expertise eine Rolle. Dadurch gerät Wissenschaft unter Druck: Ihr wachsender Einfluss als System, die Welt zu verstehen und zu erklären, weckt Begehrlichkeiten und Widerstände zugleich. Vor dem Hintergrund unserer 20 Thesen für eine wissenschaftsfreundliche Kultur möchten wir an dieser Podiumsdiskussion in Zusammenarbeit mit der Universität Bern erörtern, wie politisch Wissenschaft sein darf.
Are you interested in how systems thinking and design for social change is done and how this can have an impact in policymaking?
If yes, join our upcoming science and policy workshop.
Continue reading New Course Offer – Systems Thinking and Design for Social Change and in PolicymakingResponse Doctoral Program
It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for – the whole thing – rather than just one or two stars. – David Attenborough
When we think about ecological diversity, our minds often jump to different species of plants and animals. But what if there is more to this story? Diversity extends beyond genes, plants, and animals—it is also about the variety of ecosystems in the landscapes around us (Fig. 1). Imagine a patchwork quilt of croplands, forests, grasslands, wetlands and meadows. Could this mosaic be the key to a healthier, more resilient environment? Do these diverse ecosystems, working together, contribute to the overall balance of our landscapes on a grander scale?
Recently, researchers have started to explore the role that landscape diversity plays in the broader functioning of our environment. While the question is challenging, the answer is crucial for shaping policies that guide how we plan and manage landscapes in the long term. For example, think about zoning maps. These tools dictate how land is used, and they could greatly benefit from insights into how different ecosystems interact and support each other. To make a real impact, it is essential to connect academic research with political decision-making. By doing so, we can ensure that our understanding of landscape diversity goes beyond the theoretical, and has practical, real-world applications that benefit society as a whole.
Simon Landauer, is a PhD student in the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich, as well as a RESPONSE fellow in the PhD program Science and Policy. He tackles this challenge by using satellite remote-sensed imagery of land covers derived every year for fifteen years for around 50’000 rectangular plots of 500m by 500m distributed on the North American continent. From this data, he calculates the number of different land covers in each plot, and correlates it with ecosystem functioning, which he operationalizes as the productivity of vegetation for each land cover type in a plot. Then, he determines positive and negative effects of diversity across all plots.
Key research findings
Simon has identified that landscapes with mixed land cover type show higher vegetation productivity, compared to landscapes with a single land cover type. Analysis of the mechanistic underpinnings of these associations indicate that they are driven by two processes. On the one hand, positive complementarity is at play, whereby land cover types in a landscape complement each other and benefit on average from the mixture, bringing about enhanced vegetation productivity. And on the other hand, negative selection is a significant process, whereby those land covers that are generally less productive, for instance shrublands, benefit more from the presence of diverse land covers in the landscape. Interestingly, these patterns are comparable to results from traditional biodiversity research experiments at smaller spatial scales in grasslands. Simon further identified that productive land cover types supported local productivity, while the type thereof differed by location. These results further hint towards the presence of a so-called spatial insurance in diverse landscapes.
Stakeholder engagement at the science-policy interface
Simon acknowledges the importance of identifying and aligning interests of governmental and organizational entities to ensure that these findings of landscape diversity are contextualized for local policy in Switzerland. Therefore, he organized a stakeholder meeting of those engaged at the science-policy interface at the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT). This meeting in Bern was attended by the Head of Sustainability Research, the Head of the forum Landscapes, Alps, Parks, and Simon’s research partner organization at the Swiss Biodiversity Forum.
The stakeholders identified the Landscape Quality Assessment Unit of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) as an essential entity for matters of landscape diversity in Switzerland. Similar to other European countries, Switzerland has witnessed a continuing trend in land consolidation with re-adjustment and industrialization of agricultural land parcels. Consequently, special interest is given to a time series analysis of landscape diversity and the effects of such a process of homogenization. This is also visible in the Areal Statistik – a re-occurring sampling approach-based land use map of Switzerland. Identifying and measuring effects of landscape diversity at a large scale is therefore, likely, of particular interest to landscape quality assessing institutions such as FOEN as well as the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL).
Insights from the stakeholder meeting
Stakeholders acknowledged an increasing awareness of the idea of landscape diversity (Table 1), although political action in this regard is deemed to be still lacking. The trend of landscapes with a single land cover, i.e. monetization, is still predominant and spreading, despite being contradictory to the growing desire for sustainable diversification of landscapes. Despite being a fundamental issue affecting society, there is little bottom-up interest for landscape diversity. This may be due to the difficulty to assess short-term, direct effects of diverse landscapes on everyday life. Simon also emphasizes that this stakeholder exchange indicated that science and politics are often more closely connected than it appears. Further, he highlighted the value in seeking dialogue to discuss and align interests that can create effective outcomes for society.
Simon Landauer is a fellow of the RESPONSE Doctoral Program (DP) «RESPONSE – to society and policy needs through plant, food and energy sciences» funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 847585.
This article is co-authored by Simon Landauer and Mary Ann George (University of Zurich, RESPONSE Program office assistant).
Featured Image credits: Hendrik Wulf (2024). The featured image titled “WunderTundra” won the 2nd prize under category “Locations and instruments” in the MNF Science Photo Contest 2024. Image description: “This false-color Landsat 8 image shows the North Siberian tundra along the Indigirka River. In addition to the meandering river, this landscape features several lakes (pink and yellow) next to grasslands and shrubs (green and blue). The vivid colors and patterns of the image reveal the beauty and diversity of the almost untouched tundra landscape in summer.”
Response Doctoral Program
It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for – the whole thing – rather than just one or two stars. – David Attenborough
When we think about ecological diversity, our minds often jump to different species of plants and animals. But what if there is more to this story? Diversity extends beyond genes, plants, and animals—it is also about the variety of ecosystems in the landscapes around us (Fig. 1). Imagine a patchwork quilt of croplands, forests, grasslands, wetlands and meadows. Could this mosaic be the key to a healthier, more resilient environment? Do these diverse ecosystems, working together, contribute to the overall balance of our landscapes on a grander scale?
Continue reading Landscape Diversity Begets Landscape Functioning -Relevance for policy implementation
