Intensive crop production on grassland-derived Mollisols has liberated massive amounts of carbon (C) to the atmosphere. Whether minimizing soil disturbance, diversifying rotations, or re-establishing perennial grasslands and integrating livestock can slow reverse this trend remains highly uncertain. We investigated how these management practices affected organic (SOC) accrual distribution between particulate (POM) mineral-associated (MAOM) matter in a 29-y-old field experiment North Central...

Habitat loss can have a negative effect on the number, abundance, and composition of species in plant-pollinator communities. Although we general understanding consequences habitat for biodiversity, much less is known about resulting effects pattern interactions mutualistic networks. Ecological networks formed by often exhibit highly nested architecture with low modularity, especially comparison antagonistic These patterns interaction are thought to confer stability With growing threat...

Abstract Pollinators are undergoing a global decline. Although vital to pollinator conservation and ecological research, species-level identification is expensive, time consuming, requires specialized taxonomic training. However, deep learning computer vision providing ways open this methodological bottleneck through automated from images. Focusing on bumble bees, we compare four convolutional neural network classification models evaluate prediction speed, accuracy, the potential of...

The performance of computer vision models for object detection and classification is heavily influenced by the number classes quality input images, particularly in biological applications such as species-level identification bumblebees. Bee time-consuming, costly, requires specialized taxonomic training. Different deep learning based have been proven to overcome this methodological bottleneck through automated bee species from captured images. However, accurate images containing multiple...

Sugarcane aphid, Melanaphis sacchari (Zehntner), has caused significant yield loss across the sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) production region in U.S. Adequate management of sugarcane aphid depends on pest monitoring and economic threshold levels to spray insecticides. However, scouting this under field conditions is time-consuming inefficient. To assist monitoring, we propose use deep learning models automatically classify infestation leaves according different density images. We used...

Abstract In plant–pollinator networks, foraging choices by pollinators help form the connecting links between species. Flexible should therefore play an important role in defining network topology. Factors such as morphological trait complementarity limit a pollinator's pool of potential floral resources, but which resource species are actually utilized at location depends on local environmental and ecological context. Pollinators can be highly flexible foragers, effect this flexibility...

Ecosystems can be linked by the movement of matter and nutrients across habitat boundaries via aquatic insect emergence. Aquatic organisms tend to have higher concentrations certain toxic contaminants such as methylmercury (MeHg) compared their terrestrial counterparts. If come land, that consume them are expected elevated MeHg concentrations. But emergent insects could other impacts well, altering consumer trophic position or increasing ecosystem productivity a result nutrient inputs from...

One of the most challenging aspects bee ecology and conservation is species-level identification, which costly, time consuming, requires taxonomic expertise. Recent advances in application deep learning computer vision have shown promise for identifying large bumble ( Bombus ) species. However, bees, such as sweat bees genus Lasioglossum , are much smaller can be difficult, even trained taxonomists, to identify. For this reason, great majority poorly represented crowdsourced image datasets...

Resource concentration effects occur when high resource density patches attract and support more foragers than low patches. In contrast, dilution can if fewer consumers. this study, we examined the foraging rates of pollinators seed predators on two perennial plant species (Rudbeckia triloba Verbena stricta) as functions density. Specifically, whether resource-dense (densities flower seeds individual plants) resulted in greater visitation removal rates, respectively. We also were...

Abstract The amount and arrangement of habitat is a fundamental determinant biodiversity ecosystem processes in landscape. Biodiversity expected to decline following loss isolation, potentially impeding function. But because greater isolation usually accompanies loss, the effects can be confounded. Moreover, type or quality intervening matrix mediate on biodiversity. We used landscape microcosm oak leaf litter patches examine responses bacterial communities function decomposition patch size,...

Aphids are a challenging crop pest to manage. The sorghum aphid, for example, causes considerable yield loss in unmanaged sorghum. One of the key strategies mitigate losses caused by this includes monitoring productions fields and using economic thresholds spray insecticides. However, aphids is time-consuming task requires regular, visual assessments across large hectarage once detected on plants. To address challenge, we propose use object detection models based deep learning automatically...

Abstract Over the past century, habitat loss from agricultural intensification has contributed to pollinator decline. One way mitigate harmful effects of is through re-introduction native flowering plants as border strips that provide supplemental floral and nesting resources pollinators. However, crop species vary in bloom period flower densities, are thus likely attract different suites species. Resulting differences community composition affect their ability pollination services adjacent...

Abstract The amount of semi‐natural habitat surrounding farm fields is a common but inconsistent predictor natural enemy populations and predation services. Standard land cover metrics may not accurately capture the actual availability limiting resources for enemies can miss important dynamics across space time. Theory from animal movement landscape ecology predicts that regions with more, spatio‐temporally continuous (i.e. food shelter) should have larger predator enhanced biological...

Abstract Conversion of annual crops to native perennial grasslands for bioenergy production may help conserve wild bees by enhancing nest and food resources. However, bee response the disturbance biomass harvesting depend on their nesting location, thus vulnerability destruction, forb community which they forage. Moreover, because have long foraging ranges, effects local amount natural habitat in surrounding landscape. We performed a large‐scale one‐ two‐year experiment Michigan Wisconsin,...

The amount of habitat in a landscape is an important metric for evaluating the effects land cover on biodiversity, yet it fails to capture complex temporal dimensions resource availability that could be consequential species population dynamics. Here, we use spatially-explicit predator–prey metapopulation model test effect different spatiotemporal patterns insect predators and their prey. We examined responses landscapes varied both variability basal vegetation. Further, cases where prey...

Abstract In recent years, self-supervised learning has had significant success in applications involving computer vision and natural language processing. The type of pretext task is important to this boost performance. One common the measure similarity dissimilarity between pairs images. scenario, two images that make up negative pair are visibly different humans. However, entomology, species nearly indistinguishable thus hard differentiate. study, we explored performance a Siamese neural...