Thomas C. Wanger

Westlake University

Passive acoustic monitoring of soundscapes and biodiversity produces vast amounts of audio recordings, but the management and analyses of these raw data present technical challenges. A multitude of software solutions exist, but none can fulfil all purposes required for the management, processing, navigation, and analysis of acoustic data. The field...

In just over 40 years, China has gone through a major transformation from a developing country to the world’s second largest economy. During this period of ‘Opening and Reform’ (1978 to present), the development of higher education in China has been a central factor in the process of social-economic development. China has greatly expanded the numbe...

We need comprehensive information to manage and protect biodiversity in the face of global environmental challenges, and artificial intelligence is required to generate that information from vast amounts of biodiversity data. Currently, vision‐based monitoring methods are heterogenous; they poorly cover spatial and temporal dimensions, overly depen...

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...

Ecosystem services such as pollination and biocontrol may be severely affected by emerging nano/micro-plastics (NMP) pollution. Here, we synthesize the little-known effects of NMP on pollinators and biocontrol agents on the organismal, farm and landscape scale. Ingested NMP trigger organismal changes from gene expression, organ damage to behavior m...

A sound fallow program may potentially reduce food production and hence farmers' income in the short term but can help mitigate farmland pollution, improve food productivity, and enhance ecological protection in the long term. In China, degrading quality of arable land, soil pollution, and groundwater overexploitation require urgent implementation...

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 sustainability and resilience of profitable vegetable oil production globally. Here, we provide the first spatial assessment of the...

China is the leading crop producer and has successfully implemented sustainable development programs related to agriculture. Sustainable agriculture has been promoted to achieve national food security targets such as food self-sufficiency through the well-facilitated farmland construction (WFFC) approach. The WFFC is introduced in Chinas current na...

African trophy hunting is controversial. Central to the debate on this practice is whether it may be justified by any broader provisions to African society. These typically include meat supply to poor communities, problem animal control, and the funding of conservation and community development. The societal role of African hunting is as contested...

Particle size is an important indicator to evaluate the environmental risk and biotoxicity of nanoplastic (NP, particle diameter < 1,000 nm). The methods available to determine size classes of NP in environmental samples are few and are rare to achieve efficient separation and recycling of NP with close particle sizes. Here, we show that rate-zonal...

The need for remote, reliable, and scalable monitoring of plummeting biodiversity amidst mounting human pressures on ecosystems and changing climate has sparked enormous interest in Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) over multiple disciplines and ecosystems. Even though PAM could support UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Biodiversity I...

Nano and micro-plastics (NMPs, particles diameter <5 mm), as emerging contaminants, have become a major concern in the aquatic environment because of their adverse consequences to aquatic life and potentially human health. Implementing mitigation strategies requires quantifying NMPs mass emissions and understanding their sources and transport pathw...

The negative effects of air pollution, especially fine particulate matter (PM2.5, particles with an aerodynamic diameter of ≤2.5 μm), on human health, climate, and ecosystems are causing significant concern. Nevertheless, little is known about the contributions of emerging pollutants such as plastic particles to PM2.5 due to the lack of continuous...

Recent advances in Internet of Things and artificial intelligence technologies have shifted automated monitoring in smart agriculture toward low power sensors and embedded vision on powerful processing units. Vision-based monitoring devices need an effective power management and control system with system-adapted power input and output capabilities...

Rice is a staple food for half of the human population, but the effects of diversification on yields, economy, biodiversity and ecosystem services have not been synthesized. Here we quantify diversification effects on environmental and socio-economic aspects of global rice production. We performed a second-order meta-analysis based on 25 first-orde...

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 interch...

The global food system must meet the increasing demand for food, fiber, and energy while reducing environmental impacts. The UN Food System Summit (UNFSS) has made a clear call to action for a global food systems transformation. We argue that three major discrepancies remain, potentially delaying the urgent implementation of the call to action. Fir...

Agricultural diversification can enhance climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and livelihood in global farming systems. Diverse agroforestry systems with cocoa have been shown to provide all these benefits, but the often-lower yields compared to monocultures limit agroforestry adoption by smallholder farmers. Cocoa yield is pollination-li...

Fallow pilot policies exist in China but fallow priority areas have yet to be identified based on eco-environmental stressors and spatial cost-benefit analyses. Here we use a multi-criteria optimization algorithm to determine fallow priority areas based on soil pollution, groundwater overexploitation, land quality, and ecological protection redline...

Pesticide use on tropical crops has increased substantially in recent decades, posing a threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services. Amphibians and reptiles are common in tropical agricultural landscapes, but few field studies measure pesticide impacts on these taxa. Here we combine 1-year of correlative data with an experimental field approach f...

Passive acoustic monitoring of soundscapes and biodiversity produces vast amounts of audio recordings, but the management and analyses of these raw data present technical challenges. A multitude of software solutions exist, but none can fulfil all purposes required for the management, processing, navigation, analysis, and dissemination of acoustic...

Building more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food systems means rethinking how we consume, produce, and safeguard agrobiodiversity that can benefit the planet and secure access to nutritious food for all. This was the purpose of the 2021 Second International Agrobiodiversity Congress, convening scientists, Indigenous Peoples, entrepreneurs,...

Nano-/microplastics (NMPs, particle diameter < 5 mm) are widespread emerging pollutants causing diverse impacts on organisms due to their sizes, shapes, and chemical properties. Despite the fast increase in NMP research, an effective method to separate and identify NMP types from environmental samples is still lacking. Here, we developed a simple a...

Agricultural diversification is proposed as a solution to achieve food security and sustainability in intensified agriculture, but a large-scale policy implementation is lacking. As a leading agricultural producer, the integration of diversification in major policies in China could provide an important example of how to facilitate a sustainable foo...

Synthetic pesticides are core features of input-intensive agriculture and act as major pollutants driving environmental change. Agroecological science has unveiled the benefits of biodiversity for pest control, but research implementation at the farm-level is still difficult. Here we address this implementation gap by using a biblio-metric approach...

In their response to our paper on harnessing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes [1], Stein-Bachinger et al. [2] argue that our statements in favour of reducing field size and crop diversification ‘have to be combined with reduced management intensity’ to be effective. While we acknowledge the role of reducing agricultural intensity for biodive...

Accurate estimation of leaf nitrogen concentration (LNC) is critical to characterize ecosystem and plant physiological processes for example in carbon fixation. Remote sensing can capture LNC, while interrelated traits and spectral diversity across plant species prevent development of transferable LNC assessment models based on leaf reflectance. He...

Agricultural diversification of intensified farming systems is being proposed as a solution for achieving both food security and agricultural sustainability, but so far there has been little implementation of such policy at a larger scale. In China, major policies promote the “High-standard farmland consolidation” (HSFC) strategy to improve product...

Production of cocoa, the third largest trade commodity globally has experienced climate related yield stagnation since 2016, forcing farmers to expand production in forested habitats and to shift from nature friendly agroforestry systems to intensive monocultures. The goal for future large-scale cocoa production combines high yields with biodiversi...

In their response to our paper on harnessing biodiversity-friendly landscapes [1], Brühl et al. [2] argue that we underestimate the benefits of banning synthetic pesticides in organic farming. We thank the authors for highlighting the importance of reducing pesticide applications for biodiversity conservation, an assessment that we share [3–5]. How...

Emerging technologies based on the detection of electro-magnetic energy offer promising opportunities for sampling biodiversity. We exploit their potential by showing here how they can be used in bat point counts—a novel method to sample flying bats—to overcome shortcomings of traditional sampling methods, and to maximize sampling coverage and taxo...

Over the past decade, trophy hunting in Africa has seen increased public and scientific interest. Much of that attention has come from outside of Africa, with little emphasis on local views. We circulated an online survey through international networks to explore demographic and regional differences in opinion regards support for African trophy hun...

The discussion about CRISPR/Cas genome editing is focused mostly on technical aspects to improve productivity and climate resilience in major tree crops such as cocoa, coffee, and citrus. We suggest a solution to the largely ignored socioeconomic impacts for farmers, when new genome-edited varieties are introduced from the laboratory to the field.

Emerging technologies based on the detection of electro-magnetic energy offer promising opportunities for sampling biodiversity. We exploit their potential bye showing here how they can be used in bat point counts - a novel method to sample flying bats - to overcome shortcomings of traditional sampling methods, and to maximise sampling coverage and...

We challenge the widespread appraisal that organic farming is the fundamental alternative to conventional farming for harnessing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Certification of organic production is largely restricted to banning synthetic agrochemicals, resulting in limited benefits for biodiversity but high yield losses despite ongoing i...

In just over 40 years, China went through a transformation from a developing country to the second largest economy in the world and opened its doors for economic globalization. Having recurrently strengthened an even more globally connected vision for instance through large-scale infrastructure projects, a critical ingredient for dedicated implemen...

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.), a major commodity globally, depends on insects for pollination. However, the cocoa pollinator identity is largely unknown and there are important knowledge gaps regarding landscape and farm-level management driving pollinators. Here we analyzed flower visitation with two approaches to quantify how landscape and farm-leve...

Enhancing biodiversity in cropping systems is suggested to promote ecosystem services, thereby reducing dependency on agronomic inputs while maintaining high crop yields. We assess the impact of several diversification practices in cropping systems on above- and belowground biodiversity and ecosystem services by reviewing 98 meta-analyses and perfo...

Increasing demand for cocoa and climate-related yield declines have sparked a multi-stakeholder debate on cocoa production strategies. Agrochemical inputs and pollination enhancement through hand pollination are two strategies to increase yields. Here, we test both strategies with field experiments in Indonesia. We show that even partial hand polli...

Inclusion of ecosystem-based approaches in the governmental masterplan for tsunami mitigation in Palu, Indonesia may make the city a rare case study for ecological disaster risk reduction in tropical biodiversity hotspots. Such case studies are a key pillar of the United Nations (UN) Sendai Framework to protect coastal societies globally.

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) for image recognition tasks are seeing rapid advances in the available architectures and how networks are trained based on large computational infrastructure and standard datasets with millions of images. In contrast, performance and time constraints for example, of small devices and free cloud GPUs necessitate e...

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) is a cross-pollinated plant that is dependent on insect pollination. Despite this plant-pollinator dependency and the large economic value of cocoa, there are still important knowledge gaps in the identity of flower visitors, plantation management to enhance their habitats, and overall potential of pollination services to...

Cocoa is a major trade commodity that is seeing increasing demand, but also climate-related yield declines1 . There has been an ongoing discussion whether both, the effective adaptation of plantations to climate change and a long term increase of cocoa yields, can only be achieved with shaded agroforestry or also with full-sun monocultures2 . Abdul...

Adaptive certification is the best remaining option for the trophy hunting industry in Africa to demonstrate sustainable and ethical hunting practices that benefit local communities and wildlife conservation.

The negative effects of climate change on cocoa production are often enhanced through agricultural intensification, while research institutions and enterprises try to minimize yield gaps with production strategies mitigating climate risk. Ecological intensification is such a production strategy, whereby yield increase is promoted through reduced ag...

Ecologists and farmers often have contrasting perceptions about the value of natural habitat in agricultural production landscapes, which so far has been little acknowledged in ecology and conservation. Ecologists and conservationists often appreciate the contribution of natural habitat to biodiversity and potential ecosystem services such as biolo...

Pollination can be an essential but often neglected ecosystem service to mitigate crop yield gaps. Pollination services are usually studied in isolation, and their relative role and possible interactions with other factors, such as major management practices, is little understood. We tested how pollination (insect vs. wind‐ and self‐pollination) in...

Sustainable rice production is critical to food security especially in Asia. Effective biocontrol of major rice pests such as the White-Backed Planthopper (Sogatella furcifera, Horváth; WBP) is, hence, of eminent importance. We use newly compiled data from Thailand on the Wrinkle-Lipped Bat (Tadarida plicata, Buchanan), WBP distributions and an ite...

In the Report “Wild Pollinators Enhance Fruit Set of Crops Regardless of Honey Bee Abundance,” it is possible that some pollinator species were misidentified in lowland coffee, Uganda, one of the 41 studies included in the synthesis. This potential misidentification does not invalidate the analyses, conclusions, or the wider implications of the stu...

Tropical small‐holder farmers rely on sustainable food production. Crop seed predation by ants can cause substantial yield loss and result in high pesticide use. We conducted field experiments and questionnaire‐based surveys aiming to assess the effect of sown‐seed predation on four crop species ( Cucumis sativus , Daucus carota , Capsicum frutesce...

Steps toward conserving biodiversity should start at understanding the components across spatial scales and a determination of the drivers of these. Here we determine additive species diversity for arid South Australia, based on over 50 years of survey data. Elevation and soil data were sourced through the Australian Government, and climate data fr...

Honeybees Can't Do It Alone The majority of food crops require pollination to set fruit with the honeybee providing a pollination workhorse, with both feral and managed populations an integral component of crop management (see the Perspective by Tylianakis , published online 28 February). Garibaldi et al. (p. 1608 , published online 28 February) no...

Tropical small‐holder farmers rely on sustainable food production. Crop seed predation by ants can cause substantial yield loss and thereby generate high pesticide use, but quantitative evidence on the effects of pesticides on ant seed predation in agroecosystems is missing. We used field experiments and questionnaire‐based surveys to assessthe eff...

Sustainable rice production is critical to food security because it is a staple food especially in Asia. Effective biocontrol of major rice pests such as the White‐Backed Planthopper (Sogatella furcifera; WBPH) is, hence, of eminent importance. Herewe use data from Thailand and an iterative modelling approach to quantify the importance of biologica...

Under the current scenario of rapid human population increase, achieving efficient and productive agricultural land use while conserving biodiversity is a global challenge. There is an ongoing debate whether land for nature and for production should be segregated (land sparing) or integrated on the same land (land sharing, wildlife-friendly farming...

Little is known about the impact of socio-economic conditions for biodiversity conservation in Cambodia. High deforestation rates and a politically unstable recent past indicate a problematic setting for conservation efforts. Here, we studied a forest-town gradient along four villages between a population centre (i.e., Siem Reap) and the forest of...

Given growing human populations, concomitant resource use, and habitat transformation, ungulates face the localised extinction of numerous populations. Among ungulates, bovids are particularly vulnerable as many species are harvested as bushmeat and have large home range requirements. Here we determined the extent of geographic distribution and spe...

Cited By (since 1996):3, Export Date: 26 November 2013, Source: Scopus

Asian rainforests suffer from massive deforestation but remain less studied pantropically. Although Sri Lanka is a severely threatened biodiversity hot spot with high endemicity and unique conservation challenges, few have investigated how fauna respond to environmental perturbations caused by human modification of habitats. We investigated differe...

The United States conserves imperiled species with the Endangered Species Act (ESA). No studies have evaluated the ESA's coverage of species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which is an accepted standard for imperiled species classification. We assessed the ESA's coverage of IUCN-listed birds, mammals, amphibia...

![Figure][1] Land sharing. A wildlife-friendly landscape in Romania. CREDIT: KIMBERLIE RAWLINGS According to B. Phalan et al. (“Reconciling food production and biodiversity conservation: Land sharing and land sparing compared,” Reports, 2 September, p. [1289][2]), land sparing—

Tropical small‐scale farmers rely on sustainable food production, but crop seed predation by ants can cause significant food and income losses. Here, we used household questionnaires and an experiment to quantify the hitherto unstudied effect of seed predation on four vegetable crop species (eggplant, cucumber, chili pepper and carrot) and the resu...

1. Agricultural intensification reduces ecological resilience of land-use systems, whereas paradoxically, environmental change and climate extremes require a higher response capacity than ever. Adaptation strategies to environmental change include maintenance of shade trees in tropical agroforestry, but conversion of shaded to unshaded systems is c...

Local and landscape-scale agricultural intensification is a major driver of global biodiversity loss. Controversially discussed solutions include wildlife-friendly farming or combining high-intensity farming with land-sparing for nature. Here, we integrate biodiversity and crop productivity data for smallholder cacao in Indonesia to exemplify for t...