Agroecological systems aim to mimic natural ecosystems by promoting interactions between plants and animals, creating synergies that enhance productivity, resilience, and sustainability. However, most crop-livestock systems focus on cereals or forage crops with ruminants, while other associations, particularly involving uncommon livestock species, remain rare. To address this knowledge gap, this proof-of-concept study evaluated the benefits and limitations of a novel rabbit–apple association for both plants and animals. To assess the benefits of trees for rabbits, 72 growing rabbits were placed in an apple orchard (AO) and 72 in a grassland (GL). These benefits were measured in terms of alternative feed sources (apples and grass), a milder microclimate (shade), protection from aerial predators, and health and welfare indicators. Rabbits in the AO accessed a greater diversity of feed sources, reducing pelleted feed intake by 4.7% compared with rabbits in the GL. Apple trees provided shade, lowering the daily thermal amplitude by 1.5 °C compared to the GL. Under these conditions, rabbits exhibited adequate growth (average live weight 2.4 kg at 73 days) and maintained good health. Only one rabbit died from myxomatosis, and no predation occurred. The benefits of rabbits for the trees were assessed in two areas of the AO, with rabbits (n = 215 trees) and without rabbits (n = 55 trees). These assessments included measures of soil mineral fertility and the consumption of grass and fallen fruit. Areas with rabbits had 29.6% more potassium content in the soil than in areas without rabbits. Daily consumption of grass (54 g of dry matter per rabbit) and fallen apples (up to 230 g per rabbit), combined with the improvement of soil minerals, may reduce the need for fertilizers and mechanical weeding. Despite tree guards, 16.3% of trees exposed to rabbits showed some damage, mainly due to poorly fitted guards or the size of rabbits allowing animals to gnaw above the guard. Properly designed protection can mitigate this risk, which remains lower than damage caused by other livestock species. In summary, this proof-of-concept study highlights the potential of integrating rabbit and apple production within the same production area. The observed mutual benefits suggest this approach could contribute to more sustainable farming. Further research is needed to confirm these results in the long-term, and optimizing management practices may address the observed limitations.

This commentary describes advances in knowledge over the past decade on how incorporating relatively small amounts of perennial vegetation at targeted locations in agricultural landscapes can lead to substantial, disproportionately large ecosystem benefits. We highlight research demonstrating the potential for perennial vegetation within agricultural landscapes to sustain crucial ecosystem services—including regulating water, carbon, and nutrient cycles and supporting biotic interactions—while simultaneously provisioning food, fiber, and energy. We also discuss several emerging frontiers where new research is leading to a deeper understanding of how to target perennial-based practices and policies to achieve desired outcomes. We emphasize scientific and technological advances for improving the design of perennial integration, support tools for practitioners, perennial crop and livelihood diversification, and transdisciplinary approaches for co-generation of knowledge and application. Finally, we call for increased action, including research, education, stakeholder engagement, and policy development, toward strategic integration of perennials in agroecosystems.

Biodiversity plantings are effective methods of enhancing on-farm biodiversity. However, farmers are often hesitant to place them adjacent to crop fields due to concerns that they may harbor problematic weeds and pest arthropods or that the intentionally planted species may escape into the crop and act as weeds. The objective of this research was to compare weed and arthropod communities in planted versus conventionally managed field margins at two sites in New York State. Planted treatments were seeded with either native wildflowers or grasses and then either mowed infrequently or unmanaged after planting. Conventional field margin management treatments included infrequent and frequent mowing, glyphosate application, and an unmanaged control. Measurements included both seedbank and aboveground plant density and diversity, plant biomass, and the abundance of both beneficial and pest arthropods. Pest arthropod abundance both in the margin and in the crop was not affected by the field margin management strategy. Arthropod abundance and plant richness and diversity, both within fields and field margins, were not strongly affected by the field margin management method. Once the plantings were established, weed density was lower within planted margins than conventionally managed margins (P = 0.0002), with a difference of 92.8% per 0.5 m2 in 2025. Treatment affected weed biomass (P = 0.002), but treatment means differed significantly at only one site in 2024 according to Tukey’s honestly significant difference. Overall, our results indicate that the establishment of field margin plantings is unlikely to exacerbate weed pressure from field margins.

Drylands cover 41% of Earth’s land surface, support 36% of the global population and contribute 60% of global food production. Despite these ecosystems’ importance and high vulnerability to droughts and heatwaves, drylands remain some of the most understudied systems on Earth. Monitoring drylands is challenging due to their complex ecosystem structure of visible soil mixed with diverse plant species that respond rapidly to weather and climate. In 2023 and 2024, a NASA scoping study was conducted for a proposed dryland terrestrial ecology field campaign called Adaptation and Response in Drylands (ARID). Thereafter, the NASA ARID scoping team submitted their campaign proposal to NASA Headquarters, providing a study design for how field, aircraft and satellite measurements, as well as modeling, could address the most critical fundamental and applied science questions in drylands. The extensive strategic vision was created by and for the drylands research community, including remote sensors, modelers, experimentalists and ecologists from across the world, and the overall approach can be further utilized and altered for different uses and data information needs. Here, we summarize the final ARID research agenda, including its main objectives, field campaign strategy, data end-user support strategy, and U.S. and global community engagement.

Tropical forests provide essential ecosystem services (ESs) that sustain local livelihoods, yet rural Amazonian communities – among those most dependent on these services – remain under-represented in empirical valuation studies, limiting the integration of local conservation values into policy design. This study addresses this gap by estimating the willingness to pay (WTP) for ES conservation and the relative economic effort (WTP/income ratio) in two rural communities of the Peruvian Amazon: San Joaquín de Omaguas and Santa Clara de Nanay. Using a dichotomous contingent valuation format, 481 households were surveyed in 2024, and WTP was estimated through logit models following National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) guidelines. The results indicate an average WTP of PEN 3.076 (USD 0.86) per month – equivalent to 0.50% of income – representing a higher relative effort than is typically reported in high-income countries and consistent with the lower bound of values observed in low-income settings. Education, household size and local origin increased WTP, whereas income showed a negative association. These findings align with international evidence showing that education and social-relational values rather than income are the key drivers of WTP in low-income contexts. Despite these efforts, aggregate local contributions would be insufficient to finance conservation actions. Therefore, context-sensitive financial mechanisms – such as community environmental funds, differentiated contribution schemes and external co-financing – are needed to ensure equity and sustainability. This study contributes original empirical evidence from low-income Amazonian communities and highlights the relevance of the WTP/income ratio as a comparative indicator to inform equitable and transparent conservation finance.

Ubiquitous human disturbances urgently demand scalable dryland restoration, yet conventional approaches often fail under extreme climates, degraded soils and sparse vegetation. The use of microbes in restoration offers potential utility in extreme cases. While microbes support critical ecosystem functions – from nutrient cycling to stress resilience – their practical application remains inconsistent due to context dependency and mismatched priorities. Analyzing 699 dryland restoration cases, including 190 inoculation experiments, across three decades of successful and unsuccessful case studies, we found that inoculations generally yield positive outcomes, likely due to the widespread use of locally sourced inocula. However, these successes primarily target plant growth rather than restoring broader ecosystem functions. To bridge this gap, we present MICROB, a step-by-step decision framework that transforms microbial theory into an operational tool. By prioritizing practitioner-centered needs (Make it local, Identify priorities) and acknowledging that interventions are unnecessary where functional redundancy (Redundancy and function) or concomitant recovery (Concomitant recovery) suffices, this framework ensures that microbial tools enhance – rather than replace – existing aboveground strategies. Through feasible field implementation (Operate in field) and realistic financial planning (Budget considerations), we propose a scalable method that uses targeted soil conditioning to bypass costly molecular monitoring, providing an economically viable pathway to transform theoretical microbial inference into a practitioner-friendly tool for dryland restoration.

Tropical dry forests (TDFs), which comprise 40% of tropical forests and are most widespread in the Neotropics, remain under-researched. TDFs support high biodiversity and are inhabited by many Indigenous communities, making their degradation a critical socio-environmental problem, yet local drivers of deforestation are overlooked. Mexico holds the largest extent of TDFs, yet these ecosystems face high levels of disturbance and limited protection. This study models the impacts of global environmental change on a TDF in southern Mexico, focusing on land-cover dynamics, biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. We applied spatially explicit land-cover modelling under three long-term scenarios (Optimistic, Business as Usual and Pessimistic) based on varying rates of change, climate and socioeconomic conditions. Drivers were dynamically updated to reflect plausible trajectories. By overlaying land cover with species distribution data, we identified farming expansion as the primary threat to 35 endemic vertebrate species, 27 of which face a high risk of extinction. This biodiversity loss compromises ecosystem functioning and weakens the resilience of local communities. We recommend integrating conservation with Indigenous participation in sustainable land-use practices, aligned with the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt species extinction and conserve ecosystems.

Sustainable management of watersheds to secure freshwater resources and maintain ecological stability relies on adopting land-use strategies supporting diverse ecosystem services through natural processes. This necessitates systematic evaluation of prospective land-use practices and their associated costs and benefits. We conducted a comprehensive economic evaluation of pro-watershed land-use options, focusing on a well-recognized agroforestry system with alternative organic cultivation in the Navnera watershed in Rajasthan, India. We adopted the ‘total economic valuation’ framework, using the revealed preference approach for monetary evaluation and modelling indirect benefits primarily through Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST). Our findings indicate that the total economic value of ecosystem services in this watershed has the potential to increase by 4.6% with the adoption of agroforestry and only by 1.3% under organic farming compared to current land-use practices. While agroforestry might reduce farmland revenue and water yield, it compensates for these with other important environmental benefits such as water purification, sediment reduction, nutrient retention and carbon sequestration. This local-scale appraisal of ecosystem services helps policymakers understand the cost–benefit dynamics of watershed land-use changes, which is vital for developing effective management strategies through the involvement of local communities.

Common milkweed is a creeping perennial weed that is problematic in row crops and pastures. Its ability to readily reproduce via adventitious root buds enables it to persist, and full control often requires several growing seasons of management. Although it is a troublesome agricultural weed, common milkweed is ecologically important due to its use as a food source for many arthropod species. Declines in common milkweed populations in North America have been correlated with and blamed for declines in monarch butterfly populations. This review summarizes available information on the biology, ecology, and management of common milkweed, as well as its potential uses and provisioning of ecosystem services.

One of the fundamental challenges for the UN plastics treaty is to shift the current linear plastic economy into a more circular plastic economy. Transitioning to a circular plastic economy requires a profound transformation of socio-technical systems, and research suggests that disruptive policies must simultaneously destabilize the entrenched linear system and cultivate a new regime that supports circular business models. A major barrier to this transformation lies in the artificially low cost of primary plastics, maintained by substantial subsidies for fossil fuels and plastic production. These subsidies, alongside the failure to internalize negative externalities – such as extensive health impacts and environmental damage – mask the true cost of plastic use, thereby undermining the economic case for innovation in sustainable alternatives. The upcoming UN plastics treaty presents a unique opportunity to realign market incentives and drive the necessary transition toward a circular, regenerative plastic economy.

Weed diversity plays an important role in the functioning of agroecosystems. Moreover, a number of endangered/threatened plant species occur as weeds in arable fields and/or field boundaries. Agricultural intensification has imposed negative consequences on weed diversity in general, and the survival of the endangered/threatened plant species in particular. The objective of this review is to provide a theoretical framework for promoting cropland weed diversity through precision agriculture. A systematic review was conducted based on literature analysis, existing knowledge gaps, and current needs to identify a suitable approach for promoting cropland biodiversity while protecting crop yields. While nonchemical weed management methods and economic threshold–based approaches are touted to improve weed diversity, they are either ineffective or insufficient for this purpose; long-term economic consequences and the risk of weed adaptation are major concerns. A plant functional trait-based approach to promoting weed diversity, one that considers a plant’s ecosystem service potential and competitiveness with the crop, among other factors, has been proposed by researchers. This approach has tremendous potential for weed diversity conservation in commercial production systems, but field implementation has been limited thus far due to our inability to selectively control weeds at the individual-plant level. However, recent advancements in computer vision, machine learning, and site-specific weed management technologies may allow for the accurate elimination of unwanted plants while retaining the important ones. Here, we present a novel framework for the utilization of precision agriculture for the conservation of cropland weed diversity, including the protection of endangered/threatened plant species, while protecting crop yields. This approach is the first of its kind in which the control priority is ranked on an individual-plant basis, by integrating intrinsic weed trait values with field infestation characteristics, while management thresholds are tailored to specific goals and priorities.

Ecosystems are increasingly being represented as marketplaces that produce goods for humanity, and because of this, economic metaphors for increasing efficiency have been introduced into conservation. A powerful model for economic growth is the globalised free market, and some are implicitly deploying it to suggest changes in conservation practice. Ecological globalisation is the position that we should not control the free movement of species and rewilding occurs most efficiently through non-intervention. When species can move and interact with new ecological systems, they create novel ecosystems. These novel arrangements create experimental markets in nature’s economy, providing opportunities for the efficient production of goods for humans, also known as ecosystem services. When invasive species supersede local populations, it indicates previous biotic systems were inefficient, which is why they were replaced, and therefore, it is wrong to protect indigenous “losers” from extinction. Those who defend indigenous species are accused of being xenophobic against recent biotic migrants. This position is flawed both empirically and morally as there is a disconnect between these economic and political arguments when applied to human economies and nature’s economy.

Using an appropriation game setting, we examine individual responses to changes in a groups’ vulnerability to a probabilistic loss (L) of a public good. The probabilistic loss parameter entails losing 10, 50 or 90% of the value of the public good that is maintained through cooperation, where the likelihood of the loss decreases in total group cooperation. By design, the expected marginal net benefits to an individual and the expected harm to others depends endogenously on the individuals’ expectations of group cooperation and exogenously on the magnitude of the loss parameter. We find that individual cooperation is greater when forecasts of total group cooperation are greater and where the magnitude of the probabilistic loss is larger. There is, however, an interesting asymmetry in responses by two subgroups. Subjects who are pessimistic regarding total group cooperation decrease cooperation the higher the magnitude of the probabilistic loss and their decisions are tied systematically to changes in their expectations of other’s cooperation. On the other hand, subjects who are optimistic regarding total group cooperation are found to be more cooperative, but their decisions are not systematically tied to changes in expectations of others’ cooperation.

Established hedgerows of native plants on the borders of crop fields provide a variety of ecosystem service benefits in agricultural landscapes. However, their influence on weed communities is not well understood, and there are concerns that hedgerows could contribute to weed infestations on farms. To address this research gap, we examined the role of established hedgerows of native California plants on weed abundance (weed numbers and cover) and weed species richness in field borders, and in adjacent crops, in large-scale, monocropping systems compared with conventionally managed field borders (i.e., no hedgerows). Across 20 farm sites in California’s Central Valley, hedgerows on orchard crop borders reduced weed numbers by 66%, weed species richness by 59%, and weed cover by 74%. On annual field crop borders, hedgerows reduced weed numbers by 71%, weed species richness by 60%, and weed cover by 70%. In orchards, hedgerows also reduced weed intrusion into the adjacent crop interior, with significantly lower weed cover to the first tree row (area directly underneath the trees), weed species richness to the 10-m tree row, and weed numbers to the 10-m avenue (area between the tree rows). Yearly management practices and associated costs for weed control in established hedgerows were significantly less than for conventionally managed field borders. This study highlights the effectiveness of native hedgerows as a sustainable nature-based solution for reducing weed pressure and management inputs on farms.