Agricultural biodiversity has hitherto been valued almost exclusively as a source of traits that can be used in scientific breeding programs to improve the productivity of crop varieties and livestock breeds. We argue that it can make a far greater contribution to increased productivity. In particular, a wider deployment of agricultural biodiversity is an essential component in the sustainable ...

The use of plant biomass is a sustainable alternative to the reduction of CO₂ emissions. Agricultural residues are interesting bioenergy feedstocks because they do not compete with food and add extra value to the crop, which might help to manage these residues in many regions. Breeding crops for dual production of food and bioenergy has been reported previously, but the ideal plant features are...

Genetic improvement is the fundamental basis for improving nitrogen-use efficiency. A better understanding of genetic factors controlling nitrogen uptake and utilization is required for crop genetic improvement. In this study, we identified the quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with traits of nitrogen uptake and utilization by using the single-sequence repeat marker method and a recombi...

In order to improve biological control of agricultural pests, it is fundamental to understand which factors influence the composition of natural enemies in agricultural landscapes. In this study, we aimed to understand how agricultural land use affects a number of different traits in ground beetle communities to better predict potential consequences of land-use change for ecosystem functioning....

Despite their key roles in agroecosystems, species diversity of arable plants is being severely reduced by agricultural intensification, although it remains unclear whether functional diversity is affected in a similar way. We analyzed the response of four functional traits of arable plants (specific leaf area, canopy height, seed mass and flowering onset) to agricultural intensification in Med...

Identification of Quantitative Trait Transcripts for Growth 1 Traits in the Large Scales of Liver and Muscle Samples 2 3 Xinwei Xiong, Hui Yang, Bin Yang, Congying Chen, Lusheng Huang* 4 5 Key Laboratory for Animal Biotechnology of Jiangxi Province and the Ministry of 6 Agriculture of China, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China. 7 8 Running head: quantitative trait transcript...