Understanding resilience in agroecosystems: landscapes in transition

粮食、纤维和生物燃料生产是土壤提供的核心生态系统服务之一。然而，土壤也有助于水净化、碳固存、生物多样性栖息地和养分循环。促进农业集约化是为日益增长的全球人口增加粮食生产的必要条件。然而，这种加剧也与广泛宣传的围绕水质和水量、温室气体排放和生物多样性减少的环境问题有关。强化带来的最重要问题之一是对变化的适应能力降低。不幸的是，我们没有足够的信息来描述关键土壤生态系统服务对变化的弹性，特别是在加拿大的农业生态系统中。这种信息的缺乏是可持续农业的主要障碍：在全球气候变化下，土壤如何应对集约化导致的土地利用变化，或温度和降水模式的变化？特别是，在整个农业景观中，土壤功能的净变化可能是什么？

Food, fiber, and biofuel production is one of the core ecosystem services provided by soils. However, soils also contribute to water purification, carbon sequestration, habitat for biodiversity, and nutrient cycling. Intensification of agriculture is being promoted as essential to increase food production for a growing global population. However, intensification has also been linked to widely publicized environmental issues surrounding water quality and quantity, greenhouse gas emissions, and reduced biodiversity. Among the most significant problems with intensification is reduced resiliency to change. Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient information to characterize the resiliency of key soil ecosystem services to change, particularly in Canadian agro-ecosystems. This lack of information presents a major obstacle to sustainable agriculture: How might soils respond to either a change in land use due to intensification, or to a change in temperature and precipitation patterns under global climate change? In particular, what might the net change in soil function be across the agricultural landscape?