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Agricultural landscape homogenization has detrimental effects on biodiversity and key ecosystem services. Increasing agricultural landscape heterogeneity by increasing seminatural cover can help to mitigate biodiversity loss. However, the amount of seminatural cover is generally low and difficult to increase in many intensively managed agricultural landscapes. We hypothesized that increasing the heterogeneity of the crop mosaic itself (hereafter "crop heterogeneity") can also have positive effects on biodiversity. In 8 contrasting regions of Europe and North America, we selected 435 landscapes along independent gradients of crop diversity and mean field size. Within each landscape, we selected 3 sampling sites in 1, 2, or 3 crop types. We sampled 7 taxa (plants, bees, butterflies, hoverflies, carabids, spiders, and birds) and calculated a synthetic index of multitrophic diversity at the landscape level. Increasing crop heterogeneity was more beneficial for multitrophic diversity than increasing seminatural cover. For instance, the effect of decreasing mean field size from 5 to 2.8 ha was as strong as the effect of increasing seminatural cover from 0.5 to 11%. Decreasing mean field size benefited multitrophic diversity even in the absence of seminatural vegetation between fields. Increasing the number of crop types sampled had a positive effect on landscape-level multitrophic diversity. However, the effect of increasing crop diversity in the landscape surrounding fields sampled depended on the amount of seminatural cover. Our study provides large-scale, multitrophic, cross-regional evidence that increasing crop heterogeneity can be an effective way to increase biodiversity in agricultural landscapes without taking land out of agricultural production. ; This research was funded by the ERA-Net BiodivERsA, with the national funders French National Research Agency (ANR-11-EBID-0004), German Ministry of Research and Education, German Research Foundation and Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, part of the 2011 BiodivERsA call for research proposals. The UK component of this research was funded by the UK Government Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), as Project WC1034. The Canadian component of this research was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Strategic Project, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Environment Canada, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. N.G. was supported by the AgreenSkills+ Fellowship programme which has received funding from the EU's Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement FP7-609398 (AgreenSkills+ contract). A.G.-T. (Juan de la Cierva Fellow, JCI-2012-12089) was funded by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain). C. Violle was supported by the European Research Council Starting Grant Project "Ecophysiological and biophysical constraints on domestication of crop plants" (Grant ERC-StG-2014-639706-CONSTRAINTS). A.R.'s position at the University of Alicante is funded by the "Vicerrectorado de Investigación y Transferencia de Conocimiento."

Aim: Animal movement is an important determinant of individual survival, population dynamics and ecosystem structure and function. Nonetheless, it is still unclear how local movements are related to resource availability and the spatial arrangement of resources. Using resident bird species and migratory bird species outside the migratory period, we examined how the distribution of resources affects the movement patterns of both large terrestrial birds (e.g., raptors, bustards and hornbills) and waterbirds (e.g., cranes, storks, ducks, geese and flamingos). Location: Global. Time period: 2003–2015. Major taxa studied: Birds. Methods: We compiled GPS tracking data for 386 individuals across 36 bird species. We calculated the straight‐line distance between GPS locations of each individual at the 1‐hr and 10‐day time‐scales. For each individual and time‐scale, we calculated the median and 0.95 quantile of displacement. We used linear mixed‐effects models to examine the effect of the spatial arrangement of resources, measured as enhanced vegetation index homogeneity, on avian movements, while accounting for mean resource availability, body mass, diet, flight type, migratory status and taxonomy and spatial autocorrelation. Results: We found a significant effect of resource spatial arrangement at the 1‐hr and 10‐day time‐scales. On average, individual movements were seven times longer in environments with homogeneously distributed resources compared with areas of low resource homogeneity. Contrary to previous work, we found no significant effect of resource availability, diet, flight type, migratory status or body mass on the non‐migratory movements of birds. Main conclusions: We suggest that longer movements in homogeneous environments might reflect the need for different habitat types associated with foraging and reproduction. This highlights the importance of landscape complementarity, where habitat patches within a landscape include a range of different, yet complementary resources. As habitat homogenization increases, it might force birds to travel increasingly longer distances to meet their diverse needs. ; National Trust for Scotland; Penguin Foundation; The U.S. Department of Energy, Grant/Award Number: DE-EE0005362; Australian Research Council; NASA's Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), Grant/Award Number: NNX15AV92A; Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, Grant/Award Number: VIDI 864.10.006; BCC; NSF Award, Grant/Award Number: ABI-1458748; U.K. Department for Energy and Climate Change; 'Juan de la Cierva ‐ Incorporación' postdoctoral grant; Irish Research Council, Grant/Award Number: GOIPD/2015/81 ; DECC; Goethe International Postdoctoral Programme, People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007‐2013/ under REA grant agreement no [291776]; German Aerospace Center Award, Grant/Award Number: 50JR1601; Scottish Natural Heritage; Solway Coast AONB Sustainable Development Fund; COWRIE Ltd.; Heritage Lottery Fund; Robert Bosch Stiftung; NSF Division of Biological Infrastructure Award, Grant/Award Number: 1564380; Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Grant/Award Number: IJCI-2014-19190; Energinet.dk; NASA Award, Grant/Award Number: NNX15AV92A; MAVA Foundation; Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Grant/Award Number: SFRH/BPD/118635/2016; National Key R&D Program of China, Grant/Award Number: 2016YFC0500406; Green Fund of the Greek Ministry of Environment

Species co-occurrence patterns inform the selection of surrogate species in conservation planning because co-occurrence is often a non-random process. Probabilistic models can determine whether a species co-occurrence is significant (i.e., non-random) where significant positive co-occurrence indicates potential mutualisms and negative co-occurrence indicates competition (1). One challenge is that co-occurrence is dynamic over time (2), especially in successional habitats or seasonally with migratory species. In complex landscapes, habitat quality may be related to the composition and complexity of available cover types (3) because species may benefit from exploiting resources in multiple cover types. This is known as landscape complementation, when non-substitutable resources, such as food and nest sites, are acquired in different cover types to meet requirements across the annual cycle. Species that rely on landscape complementation may be ideal surrogate species because their varied habitat requirements may lead to co-occurrences with a diverse set of species. This project focuses on Red-headed Woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus, hereafter RHWO), a species of conservation concern, at an active military base in Virginia, USA where prescribed fire and timber harvests are common. RHWO has experienced a 68% range-wide population loss over the last 45 years and is designated as near threatened by the IUCN. Our objectives were to (1) determine if RHWO prefer areas with multiple rather than one homogenous cover type and (2) if they are effective surrogates for cavity nesting species. We compared RHWO abundance in sites with varying amounts of closed canopy forest, savanna and wetland. We also assessed species co-occurrence in the nonbreeding and breeding seasons as well as in homogenous (closed canopy forest) and heterogeneous (mix of closed canopy, savanna and wetland) habitats. Our results indicate that sites with a mix of cover types have higher RHWO abundance in both summer and winter. We also found more significant positive species associations among cavity nesting birds in the winter than in the breeding season, and in heterogeneous habitats. Specifically, 25% of species co-occurrences in winter were non-random compared with only 7% in the breeding season. None of the co-occurrence patterns were significant in closed canopy forests whereas 5-9% were significant in sites that had a mix of closed canopy forest and wetland or closed canopy and savanna habitat. White-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis), a weak excavator, was positively associated with more species than any other, and RHWO had the second most significant positive species co-occurrences. Our preliminary results indicate that managing for a mosaic of suitable habitats is important for sustaining declining RHWO populations across the annual cycle, and that this species may be a viable surrogate for other cavity nesting species. ; peerReviewed

The rise of the synthetic opioid epidemic has time and time again brought criticism on China and India, the world's two main producers of fentanyl and its chemical precursors. In the past few years, the two countries have attempted to strengthen regulations over fentanyl production and distribution, though its effects on global drug governance remain under scrutiny. This study used qualitative and comparative methods to investigate the current regulatory landscape for fentanyl, including its efficiency and potential loopholes in China and India. It concludes that although both China and India are actively and significantly attempting to step away from the global fentanyl supply chain, these efforts remain ineffective due to institutional loopholes, namely inadequate legislation and fragmented regulatory structures. From insights gained on global drug governance, we recommend a binding international convention concentrated on controlling fentanyl and its related substances, with further bilateral and multilateral cooperation among states as necessary complementation.

The rise of the synthetic opioid epidemic has time and time again brought criticism on China and India, the world's two main producers of fentanyl and its chemical precursors. In the past few years, the two countries have attempted to strengthen regulations over fentanyl production and distribution, though its effects on global drug governance remain under scrutiny. This study used qualitative and comparative methods to investigate the current regulatory landscape for fentanyl, including its efficiency and potential loopholes in China and India. It concludes that although both China and India are actively and significantly attempting to step away from the global fentanyl supply chain, these efforts remain ineffective due to institutional loopholes, namely inadequate legislation and fragmented regulatory structures. From insights gained on global drug governance, we recommend a binding international convention concentrated on controlling fentanyl and its related substances, with further bilateral and multilateral cooperation among states as necessary complementation.

Agriculture driven landscape changes has caused worldwide forest loss and fragmentation, seriously affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services, amongst which pollination is remarkably important. Bees are an essential pollinator group for forest plant populations and food production in tropical landscapes. They are also dependent on forested environments which are essential to maintain their diversity and pollination services. We analyzed bee diversity in contrasting forest and adjacent non-forest patches to evaluate if bees can use complementary non-native environments in heterogeneous altered tropical landscapes. The effect of landscape level heterogeneity and forest amount on bee diversity was also assessed. Our hypothesis was that bee communities would be more rich and diverse inside the forest understory, but due to supplementary foraging behaviors they would be more abundant in non-forested areas where flower availability is higher. We actively sampled bees visiting flowers within forest patches and in surrounding non-forest open areas between the Cantareira and Mantiqueira mountain ranges in São Paulo, Brazil. We found higher bee richness and diversity in open areas than in forest patches, partially denying our initial hypothesis but supporting that bees are more abundant in non-forest areas. We found strong indication that landscapes with higher amount of forest and environmental heterogeneity can provide more resources for bees through resource complementation processes, maintaining their diversity in the landscape. The presence of forest patches close to crop and open areas is of utmost importance for the conservation of bees and pollination services with important consequences for land management in tropical environments.

Humans have long utilized the surrounding landscape and organisms as life resources and developed new species of organisms through cultivation. The utilization of biodiversity has played a vital role in advancing human culture, specifically regarding food and habitation. This accumulated knowledge on the ecosystem has transcended geographical boundaries of rivers, mountains, and seas, spreading to other countries where it has been adjusted or adopted. In addition, the languages and dialects of ethnic minorities, which comprise the biocultural diversity within the ecosystem, are becoming fragmented or disappearing as a result of syncretism due to impact of rapid westernization, urbanization, and development. Indigenous languages contain countless terminologies that reflect ecological characteristics of organisms and resources within a specific region, and if the ecosystem no longer exists, the language also disappears. Preserving and sustainably using indiscreetly-exploited natural ecosystems and biological resources is the way to protect and sustain the value of culture. Culture develops with high dependence on biological resources. World organizations such as IUCN, CBD, and UNESCO have already reported that the growing human population will increasingly rely on bio(resource)diversity. Like such, the relationship between biodiversity and cultural diversity, as demonstrated through flexibility, dynamics, and complementation observed during the interaction between these two paradigms, has emerged as a crucial model for achieving balance and coexistence necessary for human survival in the future. This paper will discuss the value of biocultural diversity, focusing on the relationship between geographical and typological characteristics of the island and seascape as well as the utilization of ecological resources. This study will further discuss how human geographical changes caused by socioeconomic influence within an island affect biocultural diversity and islandness through cases of island region in South Korea, Iriomote Island of Okinawa, and Pulau Madura, Indonesia.