Marine fisheries in coastal ecosystems in many areas of the world have historically removed large‐bodied individuals, potentially impairing ecosystem functioning and the long‐term sustainability of fish populations. Reporting on size‐based indicators that link to food‐web structure can contribute to ecosystem‐based management, but the application of these indicators over large (cross‐ecosystem) geographical scales has been lim...

Marine reserves are a key tool for the conservation of marine biodiversity, yet only ~2.5% of the world's oceans are protected. The integration of marine reserves into connected networks representing all habitats has been encouraged by international agreements, yet the benefits of this design has not been tested empirically. Australia has one of the largest systems of marine reserves, providing a rare opportunity to assess how...

Managing agricultural landscapes to support biodiversity and ecosystem services is a key aim of a sustainable agriculture. However, how the spatial arrangement of crop fields and other habitats in landscapes impacts arthropods and their functions is poorly known. Synthesising data from 49 studies (1515 landscapes) across Europe, we examined effects of landscape composition (% habitats) and configuration (edge density) on arthr...

Rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations are expected to increase nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from soils via changes in microbial nitrogen (N) transformations. Several studies have shown that N 2 O emission increases under elevated atmospheric CO 2 ( eCO 2 ), but the underlying processes are not yet fully understood. Here, we present results showing changes in soil N transformation dynamics from the Giessen Free Air CO 2 Enr...

Agricultural intensification is a leading cause of global biodiversity loss, which can reduce the provisioning of ecosystem services in managed ecosystems. Organic farming and plant diversification are farm management schemes that may mitigate potential ecological harm by increasing species richness and boosting related ecosystem services to agroecosystems. What remains unclear is the extent to which farm management schemes af...

Cryptogamic covers, which comprise some of the oldest forms of terrestrial life on Earth (Lenton & Huntingford, ), have recently been found to fix large amounts of nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (Elbert et al ., ). Here we show that they are also greenhouse gas sources with large nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and small methane ( CH 4 ) emissions. Whilst N 2 O emission rates varied with temperature, humidity, and N dep...

The increasing concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is expected to lead to enhanced competition between plants and microorganisms for the available nitrogen (N) in soil. Here, we present novel results from a 15 N tracing study conducted with a sheep‐grazed pasture soil that had been under 10 years of CO 2 enrichment. Our study aimed to investigate changes in process‐specific gross N transformations in a soil pre...

Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N 2 O) have continued to rise since the advent of the industrial era, largely because of the increase in agricultural land use. The urine deposited by grazing ruminant animals is a major global source of agricultural N 2 O. With the first commitment period for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol now underway, mitigation options for ruminant...

Few data are available to validate the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) emission factors for indirect emissions of nitrous oxide (N 2 O). In particular the N 2 O emissions resulting from nitrogen leaching and the associated groundwater and surface drainage (EF5‐g) are particularly poorly characterized. In situ push–pull methods have been used to identify the fate of NO 3 − in the groundwater. In this study, w...

There is uncertainty in the estimates of indirect nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The uncertainty is due to the challenge and dearth of in situ measurements. Recent work in a subtropical stream system has shown the potential for diurnal variability to influence the downstream N transfer, N form, and estimates of in‐stream N 2 O production. Studies in temperate...

There is considerable uncertainty in the estimates of indirect N 2 O emissions as defined by the intergovernmental panel on climate change's (IPCC) methodology. Direct measurements of N 2 O yields and fluxes in aquatic river environments are sparse and more data are required to determine the role that rivers play in the global N 2 O budget. The objectives of this research were to measure the N 2 O fluxes from a spring‐fed rive...