EcoStack - Stacking of ecosystem services: mechanisms and interactions for optimal crop protection, pollination enhancement, and productivity

Farmers in different European countries were asked on their use of environmental-friendly practices, their constraints and their potential. Participants were asked to name practices that they currently carry out to control pests, disease and weeds.
They indicate that currently pesticides are mainly used to control pests, however some biological control is also practiced. Often pests are not the main concern, especially in cereal crops and pasture lands. Sometimes pesticides on are not used on wheat crops because of the low cost-effectiveness of treatments. Resistant crop varieties were cited as an environmental-friendly practice (agroecological practice) that is used to protect against plant diseases. The use of herbicides is still the main method to control weeds. However, mechanical weeding, green manures, false seedbed technique, use of tall wheat varieties and grazing were stated as ways used to control weeds. Crop rotations were also mentioned as an effective practice to control pests, diseases, and weeds. However, the high costs and development of resistant populations and harm to non-target organisms were noted by interviewees as the main disadvantages for using pesticides.
The main disadvantages of environmental friendly practices, as stated by interviewees, were predominately linked to weed management. Issues interviewees mentioned related to the higher investment of time need to control weeds using environmental friendly practices, including finding the right time for field operations.

We aim to improve ecosystem service provision in-crop by optimizing provision of off-crop resources which provide habitat, food and alternative hosts for crop pollinators and the natural enemies of crop pests: the ecosystem service providers (ESPs).
We sampled pests and ESPs in oilseed rape (OSR) crops and in surrounding semi-natural habitats in two contrasting types of landscapes, complex and simple in Serbia and UK. We used standard entomological methods including pan trapping, pitfall trapping, sweep netting and visual observations. Before and during flowering of OSR we found a greater abundance of pollen beetle pests in OSR crops in simple landscapes while later in the season this trend was reversed; OSR and semi-natural habitats in complex landscapes had noticeably higher pest abundance than in simple landscapes. Parasitoids were more abundant in semi-natural habitats, while ground beetles were most abundant in semi-natural habitats in simple landscapes. Bees were more abundant in semi-natural habitats than in OSR crops, and more abundant in OSR in simple than complex landscapes.
These preliminary results indicate the importance of semi-natural habitats for various groups of insects, especially in simple landscapes. This further strengthens the need to better understand how floral availability influences ESPs.

Fungi and bacteria associated with plants can provide efficient protection against insect pests and diseases, leading to improved plant health and productivity. Beneficial organisms are occurring naturally in soil. Therefore, cultural practices used should be chosen carefully not to destroy the diversity of microorganisms, but to stimulate the beneficial parts of the community. This can be done for example by additions of fresh or composted plant material to the soil. Management of naturally occurring beneficial microorganisms in agricultural cropping systems constitute an interesting possibility for sustainable crop protection, but strategies for how to include such approaches in the cropping practices to utilize their full potential needs to be further developed.
We are studying how organic soil amendments influence the abundance and composition of fungal and bacterial communities in soil and on roots, and how root diseases of olive and tomato can be controlled by such strategies. Both fungal and bacterial communities are greatly influenced by additions of composted as well as fresh plant material. In tomato, we have found that root diseases such as corky root rot, can be suppressed by additions of plant material as it results in increased microbial activity. However, the magnitude and direction of changes in the communities of beneficial microorganisms has been found to depend on the soil. Although the responses of microbial communities vary among soils, the addition of plant material results in disease suppression and improved plant growth.
Stimulating the beneficial microbes by additions of plant material is therefore a promising approach to reduce root diseases and the damage they cause.

Although evolution of resistance to insecticides have been shown in a number of pest species (336 in 2015), the phenomenon seems much less common among pest control agents, with only 38 species with proven resistance to at least one pesticide. The difference may be caused by inferior detoxification mechanisms in pest control agents or, simply, by the less likely detection of resistance generally in ESPs. To test these hypotheses a wide campaign to screen resistance in ESPs is needed.
The CGT test proved to be a fast, effective and inexpensive tool for monitoring resistance of invertebrates to pesticides. The test uses small (ca. 15-20 mL) vials coated with selected pesticide applied as an active ingredient dissolved in acetone and dried afterwards. The pesticide can be applied in several doses, allowing for estimating species sensitivity distribution (SSD) curves for whole communities and identifying resistant populations. The first set of screening tests across the EU, using glass tubes coated with lamba-cyhalothrin, have identified several ESP species populations with reduced sensitivity to the insecticide, namely: Poecilus cupreus in France and Poland, Metallinea properans and Pseudoophonus rufipes in France, Scymnus sp. in Portugal, and Coccinella septemempunctata, Pterostichus melanarius and Dierettiela rapae in the UK.
The existence of resistant populations of ESP species can be considered beneficial but, on the other hand, increased resistance usually connects with some costs of the tolerance, for example reduced fecundity or increased susceptibility to other stressors, including sub-optimal temperatures, drought, starvation, etc., which may be of particular interest in the context of global climate change.

ALMaSS (www.almass.dk) is a simulation system for evaluating the impact of management on wildlife, including beneficial organisms at landscape scales. Developed in Denmark, this methodology has been expanded to include Poland, The Netherlands and parts of Portugal. EcoStack added three new countries, namely France, Sweden and Finland. As part of this process the methods for ‘capturing’ landscapes in simulation have been refined. These methods encompass three main processes:
• Landscape data collection – this is the collection and collation of key geographic and farm databases to create the basis for the generation of ALMaSS mapping per country. These data sets, for all but Portugal, allow for a full national coverage of ALMaSS landscapes for simulation. The data needed includes detailed maps, including farm fields (mapped or determined from remote sensing), what crops the farm grows, and details of the animals present on each farm.
• ALMaSS static map generation - done by creating a small program that will combine the information collected to form a static map for input to ALMaSS. Included in this process is the classification of farms into predefined farm types, and specification of the typical crop rotations for each farm type.
• Generation of dynamic elements - includes simulating the regional-specific management of crops, growth responses of crops to management and weather, and inclusion of historical weather records for each country/region modelled.
Once created landscapes, typically 10x10km, can be selected from the database to be simulated in ALMaSS. This provides an important resource for very realistic modelling scenarios of management of agricultural systems and the impact of these on natural systems.

The EcoStack is a multi-actor project based on innovations that can improve European agriculture by exchanging (innovative) farming practices. Innovations, however, can be improved by means of continuous interactions among stakeholders, such as farmers, researchers and advisors from different sectors and member states. To that end, a resource hub and a learning platform are integrated in the EcoStack project. They are dedicated online resource hub and messaging system that enable interested people to actively interact with EcoStack project researchers. The learning platform will also be used to disseminate latest information and results from the EcoStack project.
Two type of access are possible: “open”, where documents for the most general audience are made available for reading and downloading, and “controlled”, requiring registration on the EcoSTack web site (https://www.ecostack-h2020.eu/stakeholder-learning-platform/). Registered stakeholders will be allowed to access two tools: Alfresco (document sharing: http://alfresco.agecon.unina.it) and Mattermost (messaging/discussion/blogging: http://mattermost.agecon.unina.it). A moderator per Country will be selected so that documents and discussions can be done in any country’s own language. Both tools are available online and are managed by the University of Naples Federico II (Italy).

Entomopathogens are microbials able to infect and kill insects, but they can also colonize endophytically several plant species, promoting their growth and providing protection against pests and pathogens. We have studied these aspects in oilseed and tomato plants endophytically colonized by the entomopathogen Beuaveria bassiana, using both wild and commercial strains. The growth promotion was strain-specific and varied from neutral to negative in oilseed plants and from positive to neutral in tomato plants. In oilseed, endophytic B. bassiana did not affect the pest damage, while in tomato, selected strains were able to reduce the symptoms of grey mold and tomato leaf spot, both in vitro and in planta. Furthermore, aphid survival and fertility were reduced and Spodoptera pupal development was impaired and fertility was reduced although larval development was not affected. In addition, a remarkable reduction of the immune competence of Spodoptera was observed considerably enhancing the killing activity of Bacillus thuringiensis and, potentially, of other natural antagonists. This allows defining more effective pest control strategies based on the exploitation of such synergistic interactions. Although the growth promotion and protection against pests and pathogens vary depending on the crop plant and fungal strain, the use of entomopathogens as endophytes, either alone or in combination with other beneficial microbes, is a promising tool for biocontrol of pests and pathogens.

To maintain high productivity in modern agriculture and secure long-term biodiversity in agricultural landscapes it is necessary to know in detail the biology, ecology and ecotoxicological sensitivity to pesticides of non-target organisms, in particular those having key roles in ecosystem service provision − the ESPs. This work package addresses three concerns raised by the current state of the art, namely the lack of knowledge on the ecology of ESPs; the need to understand their ecotoxicological profiles, and the need to evaluate ecotoxicological interactions with any new bio-inspired products or management developed in this project. To meet the objectives, the work addresses these knowledge deficits by developing a database of ecology and biology of the most important ESPs, and evaluating their sensitivity to common pesticides, and potential interactions with new products and management.
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been prepared to be used in testing non-target arthropods (NTA) for their sensitivity to pesticides. A large number of ecotoxicological tests have been performed, including Coated Glass Tube (CGT) assays and laboratory tests to construct Species Sensitivity Distribution (SSD) curves and compare different exposure routes/doses. The CGT tests have identified several species populations with reduced sensitivity to -cyhalothrin, while the SSD revealed that some insecticides, when used at recommended application rates, bring unacceptable risk to ESPs. The tests performed so far within WP7 showed, thus, that current regulations do not protect sufficiently the ESPs, and all NTA in general, and should be revised.

The regulations in the European Union for approval of plant-beneficial microorganisms and their corresponding products are currently scattered on several different regulatory frameworks. For instance, while antagonistic microorganisms used in plant pest and disease control are strictly regulated under the plant protection products (PPP) framework, microorganisms known to act through growth stimulation processes (‘plant biostimulants’) are generally covered by various (currently mostly national) regulations in the fertilizers area.
Based on an inventory of current regulatory policies, we formulated options for improved, more harmonized, regulations that can lead to more efficient approval of plant-beneficial microorganisms and increase the availability of microbial products to farmers in the future. These preliminary options were discussed with representatives of major regulatory bodies and interest organizations at an EcoStack workshop. Our informed recommendations for improved regulatory policy were presented in two journal publications.
In brief, a substantial body of evidence shows that the PPP framework has performed poorly for evaluating microorganisms. The assessments need stronger rooting in microbiological sciences, by revisions of the legislation and possibly establishment of units and personnel that are dedicated to microorganisms and microbial PPPs. We also recommend that in the longer run, policy makers and legislators should take steps to develop and implementat new, harmonized regulations that, possibly, cover all plant-beneficial microorganisms under one single framework.

ALMaSS is a simulation system comprising a large number of fully interconnected sub-models. It has two key components, a model of the environment and models of people and organisms. The environment component is represented by a detailed map of a real area, selected from a number of countries in Europe where ALMaSS capability is established. This ‘Landscape Model’ is dynamic and of a high resolution, including aspects such as vegetation growth of crops and non-crop areas, field margins and other small habitats. The key feature of the landscape model is the farming model. This works by modelling each farm unit. Each model farmer carries out daily management of crops on all individual fields, affecting crop growth and also providing events that impact the organisms, including modelling pesticides and their environmental fate.
The organism and people models interact with the landscape and each other to create realistic patterns of behaviour and population changes. This provides a research/policy tool to evaluate the impact of changes in farm/crop management on the range of species modelled. Here we have a particular focus on ecosystem service providers of pollination and pest control.
Using the model to assess new ways to combine environmentally beneficial management without compromising productivity will provide evaluations of how to achieve targets (e.g. 50% pesticide reduction under the Green Deal), at the same time protecting or boosting, ecosystem service providers. As part of multi-criteria decision making process the simulation modelling will allow the testing of a range of ideas in silico, which would otherwise not be possible or practical in real life.