Agriculture is a specialized form of symbiosis that is known to have evolved in only four animal groups: humans, bark beetles, termites, and ants. Here, we reconstruct the major evolutionary transitions that produced the five distinct agricultural systems of the fungus-growing ants, the most well studied of the nonhuman agriculturalists. We do so with reference to the first fossil-calibrated, m...

DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as the result of work sponsored by the California Energy Commission (Energy Commission) and the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA). It does not necessarily represent the views of the Energy Commission, Cal/EPA, their employees, or the State of California. The Energy Commission, Cal/EPA, the State of California, their employees, contractors, ...

Globally, ministries of agriculture, universities, and the private sector employ more than 600,000 extension agents (Swanson, Farmer, and Bahal 1990). In the past, extension services, largely public, were equated with the transfer of agricultural production technology in pre-determined “packages”. Extension systems are now understood to be much broader and more diverse, including public and pri...

Information systems relate to diverse applications, but, until recently, the use of this technology in agriculture and environment has been relatively behind the applications in the industrial sector. The publication of IJAEIS started in 2010 in order to promote the new research advances in information systems applied to agriculture and environment. This paper presents an overview of the differ...

Agricultural models and decision support systems are becoming increasingly available for a wide audience of users. The Great Plains Framework for Agricultural Resource Management (GPFARM) DSS is a strategic planning tool for farmers, ranchers, and agricultural consultants that incorporates a science simulation model with an economic analysis package and multi-criteria decision aid for evaluatin...

1 Agriculture is a dominant land use worldwide with approximately 40% of the land's surface used for 2 farming. In many countries, particularly parts of Europe, this figure is substantially higher and most 3 agricultural land is under intensive practices aimed at maximising the production of food. The 4 intensification and expansion of modern agricultural practices led to the biological simplif...

Wilfried Mirschel⁎, Ralf Wieland, Marion Voss, Igbekele Ajibefun, Detlef Deumlich Leibniz-Center for Agricultural Landscape Research, Institute of Landscape Systems Analysis, Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374 Muencheberg, Germany Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria Leibniz-Center for Agricultural Landscape Research, Institute of Soil Lan...

Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Knowledge and Institutions (SASKI) is a thematic group that promotes sustainable agricultural production, processing and marketing systems through gender-responsive knowledge institutions within the Rural Development Family of the World Bank. Agriculture is defined to include crop, livestock and aquaculture. iii Contents