Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EcoStack (Stacking of ecosystem services: mechanisms and interactions for optimal crop protection, pollination enhancement, and productivity)
Reporting period: 2021-09-10 to 2023-03-09
Intensification of agriculture to meet food demands of a growing global population is difficult to reconcile with protection of the environment and of non-renewable resources. The resulting loss of natural habitats through conversion into farmland with intensive farming has major negative impacts on the environment and biodiversity; a serious concern addressed by a number of EU agri-environment policies. Moreover, the use of synthetic agrochemicals is often associated with undesirable negative impacts (EEA, 2013, 11: 240-261), which are addressed by the EU Directive on Sustainable Use of Pesticides (Directive 2009/128/EC).
It is an ethical imperative to develop forms of agricultural production that address the crucial societal challenge of balancing the demand for food and high productivity, imposed by the predicted global population increase, with reduced environmental impact and social acceptability of new production strategies. It is also imperative that responsible approaches are developed that align with the goals to reduce Society’s impact on climate change.
Agroecosystems are ecologically simplified and artificially managed, but they still rely on multiple ecosystem services provided by a wealth of beneficial organisms and microorganisms, which are essential for biocontrol of pests, pollination of crops, recycling of nutrients and organic matter for maintenance of soil fertility, and conservation of farmland biodiversity. EcoStack is a multi-actor endeavor, aiming to develop ecologically, economically and socially sustainable crop production strategies via stacking of ecosystem service provision from optimized biodiversity management and bio-inspired tools for crop protection, in order to enhance the sustainability of food production systems across Europe.
It is an ethical imperative to develop forms of agricultural production that address the crucial societal challenge of balancing the demand for food and high productivity, imposed by the predicted global population increase, with reduced environmental impact and social acceptability of new production strategies. It is also imperative that responsible approaches are developed that align with the goals to reduce Society’s impact on climate change.
Agroecosystems are ecologically simplified and artificially managed, but they still rely on multiple ecosystem services provided by a wealth of beneficial organisms and microorganisms, which are essential for biocontrol of pests, pollination of crops, recycling of nutrients and organic matter for maintenance of soil fertility, and conservation of farmland biodiversity. EcoStack is a multi-actor endeavor, aiming to develop ecologically, economically and socially sustainable crop production strategies via stacking of ecosystem service provision from optimized biodiversity management and bio-inspired tools for crop protection, in order to enhance the sustainability of food production systems across Europe.
THE ROLE OF LANDSCAPE – EcoStack investigates how off-crop habitats and the ecosystem service providers they support impact crop yield. Using yield monitor data collected from farmers we showed that yield declines at the crop edge. We surveyed different field-boundary habitats and the adjacent crops. Benefits of off-crop habitats included increased aphid parasitism in-crop. Protocols have been developed to determine species composition from collected samples using molecular techniques and novel image-based tools developed will help to quantify ecosystem service provision.
IN-CROP INTERVENTIONS - Agronomic practices within the crop, e.g. variety mixes, companion crops and the use of organic mulch can significantly improve the provision of ecosystem services within the crop. We have found that certain varietal mixes reduce aphid performance and that companion planting (intercropping, trap cropping, undersowing) and organic mulches reduce pests while supporting beneficial insects. The results of crop trials designed by consulting commercial farmers and other stakeholder groups show how these measures can be successfully implemented in barley, wheat, oilseed rape and potato crops.
BIO-INSPIRED PLANT PROTECTION – Strategies to stimulate naturally occurring or introduced antagonists of pests and pathogens have been tested for their efficacy in crop protection, including mechanistic understanding as well as their practical use under field conditions. We have scaled up production of one candidate molecule using large-scale fermentation for further efficacy trials and biosafety testing, which have now been conducted; we have also identified further insecticidal molecules as potential biopesticides. We have identified and demonstrated that plant signalling molecules enhance both direct and indirect defence barriers against insect pests and pathogens at femtomole levels.
ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT – Data has been collected on the biology and ecology of ESP key species for modelling studies; the sensitivity to major pesticides and their combinations of major biological control agents and pollinators in different European countries has been assessed. Data collected indicate a high probability of unacceptable effects of the tested insecticides on ESP communities. However, no major synergistic interactions were found between the tested plant protection products.
MODELLING AND UPSCALING –Pursued by developing landscape models to support simulation of ESPs in collaboration with other H2020 projects. Landscape models were completed for nine countries (Belgium Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and UK). Development of ESP is underway: a new sub-population approach added to ALMaSS to model numerous species (e.g. aphids) and development of northern-European species of beetle. The subpopulation model is complete, and all northern European aphid models, and beetles are under final calibration and testing.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT - Cost-benefit calculations of single EcoStack measures at farm-level were performed for the majority of EcoStack measures to be analyzed. At societal level, the impact of EcoStack strategies was discussed using a comparative case study on the transition to organic farming in Andalusia. To enable the integration of the complex behavior of farmers into the further upscaling of the uptake and the stacking of EcoStack measures, an extension of the ALMaSS model was developed.
IN-CROP INTERVENTIONS - Agronomic practices within the crop, e.g. variety mixes, companion crops and the use of organic mulch can significantly improve the provision of ecosystem services within the crop. We have found that certain varietal mixes reduce aphid performance and that companion planting (intercropping, trap cropping, undersowing) and organic mulches reduce pests while supporting beneficial insects. The results of crop trials designed by consulting commercial farmers and other stakeholder groups show how these measures can be successfully implemented in barley, wheat, oilseed rape and potato crops.
BIO-INSPIRED PLANT PROTECTION – Strategies to stimulate naturally occurring or introduced antagonists of pests and pathogens have been tested for their efficacy in crop protection, including mechanistic understanding as well as their practical use under field conditions. We have scaled up production of one candidate molecule using large-scale fermentation for further efficacy trials and biosafety testing, which have now been conducted; we have also identified further insecticidal molecules as potential biopesticides. We have identified and demonstrated that plant signalling molecules enhance both direct and indirect defence barriers against insect pests and pathogens at femtomole levels.
ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT – Data has been collected on the biology and ecology of ESP key species for modelling studies; the sensitivity to major pesticides and their combinations of major biological control agents and pollinators in different European countries has been assessed. Data collected indicate a high probability of unacceptable effects of the tested insecticides on ESP communities. However, no major synergistic interactions were found between the tested plant protection products.
MODELLING AND UPSCALING –Pursued by developing landscape models to support simulation of ESPs in collaboration with other H2020 projects. Landscape models were completed for nine countries (Belgium Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and UK). Development of ESP is underway: a new sub-population approach added to ALMaSS to model numerous species (e.g. aphids) and development of northern-European species of beetle. The subpopulation model is complete, and all northern European aphid models, and beetles are under final calibration and testing.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT - Cost-benefit calculations of single EcoStack measures at farm-level were performed for the majority of EcoStack measures to be analyzed. At societal level, the impact of EcoStack strategies was discussed using a comparative case study on the transition to organic farming in Andalusia. To enable the integration of the complex behavior of farmers into the further upscaling of the uptake and the stacking of EcoStack measures, an extension of the ALMaSS model was developed.
THE ROLE OF LANDSCAPE – The analysis of ESP impact on yield and its link to the surrounding landscape allows an accurate estimate of the ecological and economic impact of the off-crop components of food production systems. This approach will help to manage agricultural landscapes to maximize crop yields while minimizing inputs.
IN-CROP INTERVENTIONS – The core innovation of EcoStack is the “ecostacking” of the “best bets” in approaches to be tailored and implemented at farm level in later years of the project, using the modeling tools developed by EcoStack and through local field trials.
BIO-INSPIRED PLANT PROTECTION – This EcoStack experimental approach is highly innovative as it uses natural antagonists beyond the organism level, as a source of natural biopesticides and plant biostimulants, for the control of pests and diseases. This enables a step-change in terms of how biologically-based approaches can be deployed as part of sustainable and integrated pest management.
ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT – There is no single data source that enables assessment of actual risks to non-target organisms across different crops, pedo-climatic zones of the EU and for a range of pesticides. EcoStack is filling this gap by developing more realistic Ecological Risk Assessment for pesticides and contributing to models that allows prediction of long-term effects of combined pesticide use and other agricultural practices in a complex landscape.
MODELLING AND UPSCALING – The use of cutting-edge ALMaSS modelling facilitates extrapolation of knowledge from one context to another, so that a sparse matrix of laboratory and field data can be exploited to develop the best solutions for different eco-climatic and pedo-climatic zones in Europe, overcoming the limit of an unmanageable number of empirical field trials.
SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACT – A combination of region specific cost-benefit analysis of the process and product innovations generated by EcoStack, along with the innovative use of ALMaSS to define suitable “realistic uptake scenarios” are the most innovative aspects of an in-depth and unique evaluation and effective enhancement of the socio economic impact of EcoStack.
IN-CROP INTERVENTIONS – The core innovation of EcoStack is the “ecostacking” of the “best bets” in approaches to be tailored and implemented at farm level in later years of the project, using the modeling tools developed by EcoStack and through local field trials.
BIO-INSPIRED PLANT PROTECTION – This EcoStack experimental approach is highly innovative as it uses natural antagonists beyond the organism level, as a source of natural biopesticides and plant biostimulants, for the control of pests and diseases. This enables a step-change in terms of how biologically-based approaches can be deployed as part of sustainable and integrated pest management.
ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT – There is no single data source that enables assessment of actual risks to non-target organisms across different crops, pedo-climatic zones of the EU and for a range of pesticides. EcoStack is filling this gap by developing more realistic Ecological Risk Assessment for pesticides and contributing to models that allows prediction of long-term effects of combined pesticide use and other agricultural practices in a complex landscape.
MODELLING AND UPSCALING – The use of cutting-edge ALMaSS modelling facilitates extrapolation of knowledge from one context to another, so that a sparse matrix of laboratory and field data can be exploited to develop the best solutions for different eco-climatic and pedo-climatic zones in Europe, overcoming the limit of an unmanageable number of empirical field trials.
SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACT – A combination of region specific cost-benefit analysis of the process and product innovations generated by EcoStack, along with the innovative use of ALMaSS to define suitable “realistic uptake scenarios” are the most innovative aspects of an in-depth and unique evaluation and effective enhancement of the socio economic impact of EcoStack.