Biology subjects

Wanger, T. C.

Publications and source records attributed to Wanger, T. C..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Diversification mitigates pesticide but not microplastic effects on bees without compromising rapeseed yield in China

Humanity depends on agriculture for food, fiber and energy provisioning, but input-intensive agricultural production is impacting ecosystem services such as pollination. Pollution effects from neonicotinoid insecticides on pollinators receive much attention, but nothing is known on the synergistic effects with emerging plastic contaminants and the mitigation potential of agricultural diversification. Here, we conduct the first large-scale and full-factorial mesocosm study to understand two-generation effects of diversified floral resources (diversification treatment), neonicotinoid and microplastic pollution (pollution treatments) on Osmia cornifrons bees in 72 mesocosms. In our three-year experiment, we found that diversification can mitigate individual neonicotinoid effects. We did not find any individual or synergistic effects of microplastic on reproductive performance of solitary bees. None of our treatments affected rapeseed yield. Our results confirm the benefits of diversified flower resources to mitigate pesticide effects on bees in China and suggest that microplastics have no acute individual or interaction toxicity in semi-natural environment at realistic exposure levels. Diversified flower resources in Chinese agricultural landscapes to mitigate pesticide pollution effects on pollinators is an important policy argument for pollinator protection with downstream implications for food security.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Diversified global vegetable oil production can mitigate climate change and increase other environmental and socioeconomic benefits.

Global vegetable oil production is a crucial ingredient for food and household products but also a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental externalities. A diversified supply may improve the sustainability and resilience of profitable vegetable oil production globally. Here, we provide the first spatial assessment of the environmental and economic effects of the globally dominant vegetable oil crops soybean, oil palm, rapeseed, sunflower, groundnut, and olive globally, based on new data from a meta-analysis, life cycle assessment, and process-based crop growth modelling. We show that the total annual GHG emissions, water use, land use, pesticide use, and farmer income of the six vegetable oil crops are 1.2 Gt CO2eq/year, 876.0 km3/year, 168.3 Mha/year, 953.6 kt/year, and 66.5 billion USD/year, respectively. We also found that diversified vegetable oil production, for instance, through increased fractions of a highly productive oil tree crop Camellia oleifera can reduce GHG emissions, water use, land use, and pesticide use by 14.0%, 4.9%, 7.3%, 9.3%, respectively and increase farmer income by 82.6%. When considering enabling conditions for technology and policy support in a technology-policy-enabling scenario, these benefits increase 1.3, 2.1, 1.8, 1.7, and 3.2 folds, respectively. Our results provide practical guidance on where and how diversified oil crop production can advance a sustainable food system transformation and help to mitigate climate change.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Eyes on nature: Embedded vision cameras for multidisciplinary biodiversity monitoring

Global environmental challenges require comprehensive data to manage and protect biodiversity. Currently, vision-based biodiversity monitoring efforts are mixed, incomplete, human-dependent, and passive. To tackle these issues, we present a portable, modular, low-power device with embedded vision for biodiversity monitoring. Our camera uses interchangeable lenses to resolve barely visible and remote subjects, as well as customisable algorithms for blob detection, region-of-interest classification, and object detection to identify targets. We showcase our system in six case studies from the ethology, landscape ecology, agronomy, pollination ecology, conservation biology, and phenology disciplines. Using the same devices, we discovered bats feeding on durian tree flowers, monitored flying bats and their insect prey, identified nocturnal insect pests in paddy fields, detected bees visiting rapeseed crop flowers, triggered real-time alerts for waterbirds, and tracked flower phenology over months. We measured classification accuracies between 55% and 96% in our field surveys and used them to standardise observations over highly-resolved time scales. The cameras are amenable to situations where automated vision-based monitoring is required off the grid, in natural and agricultural ecosystems, and in particular for quantifying species interactions. Embedded vision devices such as this will help addressing global biodiversity challenges and facilitate a technology-aided global food systems transformation.

ecology↗