Conservation tillage combined with cover crops or mulching may enhance natural enemy activity in agroecosystems by reducing soil disturbance and increasing habitat structural complexity. In particular, weed seed predation can increase with vegetation cover and reduced tillage, indicating that mulches may improve the quality of the habitat for weed seed foraging. The purpose of this study was to...

Conservation biological control emphasizes natural and other non-crop vegetation as a source of natural enemies to focal crops. There is an unmet need for better methods to identify the types of vegetation that are optimal to support specific natural enemies that may colonize the crops. Here we explore the commonality of the spider assemblage-considering abundance and diversity (H)-in brassica ...

the effects of land use, crop type and crop management on soil fauna were investigated with survey of four habitats in jajarm. the habitats included rangelands, alfalfa (medicago sativa l.) fields and low-input and high-input of wheat (triticum aestivum l.) fields, each with four sample units. in each sample unit, the macrofauna collected with pitfall traps, sorted and counted in terms of famil...

sleep plays a vital role in regulating physiological mechanisms in the human body. nowadays, by the change of lifestyle and as a consequence of longer work hours and increased accessibility to media, sleep disturbance becomes a common problem in modern society. many studies demonstrated that sleep disturbance triggers a systemic low-grade inflammation by increasing the level of several cytokine...

We studied the effects of periodic disturbance (prescribed burning and light disking) and landscape composition on nest density and success for grassland birds in agricultural conservation buffers in southeastern United States agroecosystems. During the 2007–2009 breeding seasons, we located 387 nests in buffers of a northeast Mississippi agroecosystem. Dickcissel (Spiza americana) and red-wing...

Frost tends to be detrimental the growth and development of horticultural crops, leading yield or quality reduction with sizable economic losses. Therefore, it is very important develop frost protection technology for crops. In this study, reviewed, research mechanized in recent years analyzed. view poor effect some single technology, combination put forward. The airflow disturbance sprinkler i...

Agricultural intensification both increases disturbances at the field level and reduces habitat heterogeneity landscape this can have detrimental effects on biodiversity-driven ecosystem services. A few studies shown that agricultural diminish service of weed seed predation, but it is not known to what extent availability crop non-crop provide disturbance refugia for predators how those cascade...

Recently tillage manufacturers have been promoting vertical tillage systems claiming that their use can overcome production limitations associated with no-till while maintaining sufficient residue cover to provide erosion protection. Vertical tillage refers to systems where soil disturbance is confined to soil movement mostly in the upward direction and/or confined to a slot or strip where the ...

Shadows have been one of the most serious problems for vegetation segmetation, espescially under conditions of natural random airflow and human or vehicle disturbance. A video sequence processing method has developed in this paper to identify and eliminate crop shadows. The method comprises pixel models and algorithms explained in a probable learning framework. Expectation maximization (EM) for...