Push-Pull Intercropping Increases the Antiherbivore Benzoxazinoid Glycoside Content in Maize Leaf Tissue.

Push-pull technology refers to a promising mixed cropping practice for sustainable agricultural intensification, which uses properties of intercrop and border crop species to defend a focal crop against pests. Currently, the most widely practiced system uses spp. as intercrop and Brachiaria or Napier grass as border crops to protect maize () against both insect pests and parasitic weeds.

Flower-bee versus pollen-bee metanetworks in fragmented landscapes.

Understanding the organization of mutualistic networks at multiple spatial scales is key to ensure biological conservation and functionality in human-modified ecosystems. Yet, how changing habitat and landscape features affect pollen-bee interaction networks is still poorly understood. Here, we analysed how bee-flower visitation and bee-pollen-transport interactions respond to habitat fragmentation at the local network and regional metanetwork scales, combining data from 29 fragments of calcareous grasslands, an endangered biodiversity hotspot in central Europe.

A plant-pollinator metanetwork along a habitat fragmentation gradient.

To understand how plant-pollinator interactions respond to habitat fragmentation, we need novel approaches that can capture properties that emerge at broad scales, where multiple communities engage in metanetworks. Here we studied plant-pollinator interactions over 2 years on 29 calcareous grassland fragments selected along independent gradients of habitat size and surrounding landscape diversity of cover types. We associated network centrality of plant-pollinator interactions and grassland fragments with their ecological and landscape traits, respectively.

Unmanned aerial vehicles for biodiversity-friendly agricultural landscapes - A systematic review.

The development of biodiversity-friendly agricultural landscapes is of major importance to meet the sustainable development challenges of our time. The emergence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), i.e.