Richard Kipling

Key challenges and priorities for modelling European grasslands under climate change.

Grassland-based ruminant production systems are integral to sustainable food production in Europe, converting plant materials indigestible to humans into nutritious food, while providing a range of environmental and cultural benefits. Climate change poses significant challenges for such systems, their productivity and the wider benefits they supply. In this context, grassland models have an important role in predicting and understanding the impacts of climate change on grassland systems, and assessing the efficacy of potential adaptation and mitigation strategies. In order to identify the key challenges for European grassland modelling under climate change, modellers and researchers from across Europe were consulted via workshop and questionnaire. Participants identified fifteen challenges and considered the current state of modelling and priorities for future research in relation to each. A review of literature was undertaken to corroborate and enrich the information provided during the horizon scanning activities. Challenges were in four categories relating to: 1) the direct and indirect effects of climate change on the sward 2) climate change effects on grassland systems outputs 3) mediation of climate change impacts by site, system and management and 4) cross-cutting methodological issues. While research priorities differed between challenges, an underlying theme was the need for accessible, shared inventories of models, approaches and data, as a resource for stakeholders and to stimulate new research. Developing grassland models to effectively support efforts to tackle climate change impacts, while increasing productivity and enhancing ecosystem services, will require engagement with stakeholders and policy-makers, as well as modellers and experimental researchers across many disciplines. The challenges and priorities identified are intended to be a resource 1) for grassland modellers and experimental researchers, to stimulate the development of new research directions and collaborative opportunities, and 2) for policy-makers involved in shaping the research agenda for European grassland modelling under climate change.

An investigation of temporal flowering segregation in species-rich grasslands

Processes such as competition and facilitation are believed to be important in defining pollination niches in species-rich plant communities. Species with similar floral phenotypes are expected to flower together where this facilitates pollination, while differences in floral phenology are expected if such flowers compete for pollinators. These expectations were tested at seven sites by comparing the observed co-flowering of plants with similar floral phenotypes with null model outcomes. Phenotypic classifications were evaluated using observations of plant–pollinator interactions. Pollinator guilds differed in the number of visits made to flowers in different floral colour and shape categories, indicating that such categories were ecologically relevant. For species with complex flowers, each floral category contained few species, so that the observed low occurrence of co-flowering could be explained by chance. In contrast, within phenotypic categories species with simple flowers bloomed together more than expected at three sites, but these overlaps could be explained by family membership. Most species with complex flowers could be segregated into unique pollination niches by broad floral colour and shape categories, so that there was little opportunity for competition between flowers within such categories. Species with simple floral phenotypes were less well defined by floral phenotype and phenology. Historical sorting may explain differences between complex flowers, while co-flowering between species with simple flowers requires further investigation. Differences found between species with simple and complex flowers suggest that levels of phenotypic specialisation should be taken into account in community level studies of pollination systems.

Evaluating a European knowledge hub on climate change in agriculture: Are we building a better connected community?

In order to maintain food security and sustainability of production under climate change, interdisciplinary and international collaboration in research is essential. In the EU, knowledge hubs are important funding instruments for the development of an interconnected European Research Area. Here, network analysis was used to assess whether the pilot knowledge hub MACSUR has affected interdisciplinary collaboration, using co-authorship of peer reviewed articles as a measure of collaboration. The broad community of all authors identified as active in the field of agriculture and climate change was increasingly well connected over the period studied. Between knowledge hub members, changes in network parameters suggest an increase in collaborative interaction beyond that expected due to network growth, and greater than that found in the broader community. Given that interdisciplinary networks often take several years to have an impact on research outputs, these changes within the relatively new MACSUR community provide evidence that the knowledge hub structure has been effective in stimulating collaboration. However, analysis showed that knowledge hub partners were initially well-connected, suggesting that the initiative may have gathered together researchers with particular resources or inclinations towards collaborative working. Long term, consistent funding and ongoing reflection to improve networking structures may be necessary to sustain the early positive signs from MACSUR, to extend its success to a wider community of researchers, or to repeat it in less connected fields of science. Tackling complex challenges such as climate change will require research structures that can effectively support and utilise the diversity of talents beyond the already well-connected core of scientists at major research institutes. But network research shows that this core, well-connected group are vital brokers in achieving wider integration.