Publications

Luo J., Beule L., Shao G., Veldkamp E., Corre M. (2022.0). Reduced Soil Gross N ₂ O Emission Driven by Substrates Rather Than Denitrification Gene Abundance in Cropland Agroforestry and Monoculture. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 127(3), . doi:10.1029/2021jg006629

Conversion of monoculture to agroforestry (integrating trees with crops) is promoted as a promising management in reducing N2O emissions from croplands. How agroforestry influences gross N2O emission (N2O + N2 from N2O reduction) and uptake (N2O reduced to N2) compared to monoculture is unknown. We …

Kroschewski B., Richter C., Baumecker M., Kautz T. (2022.0). Effect of crop rotation and straw application in combination with mineral nitrogen fertilization on soil carbon sequestration in the Thyrow long-term experiment Thy_D5. Plant and Soil, 488(1-2), 121-136. doi:10.1007/s11104-022-05459-5

Abstract Aims The aim of study was to quantify the temporal change of soil organic carbon content in relation to agricultural management for a dry sandy arable soil and to derive the C sequestration potential. Methods We analyzed data from a long-term field experiment with three crop rotations of d…

Guerra V., Beule L., Mackowiak C., Dubeux J., Blount A., Wang X., Rowland D., Liao H. (2022.0). Soil bacterial community response to rhizoma peanut incorporation into Florida pastures. Journal of Environmental Quality, 51(1), 55-65. doi:10.1002/jeq2.20307

Incorporating legumes is one option for improving pasture fertility, sustainability, and biodiversity. Diazotrophic microorganisms, including rhizobia that form symbioses with legumes, represent a small fraction of the total soil microbial community. Yet, they can offset nitrogen (N) fertilizer inpu…

Heidrich V., Karlovsky P., Beule L. (2020.0). ‘SRS’ R Package and ‘q2-srs’ QIIME 2 Plugin: Normalization of Microbiome Data Using Scaling with Ranked Subsampling (SRS). Applied Sciences, 11(23), 11473. doi:10.3390/app112311473

Several ecological data types, especially microbiome count data, are commonly sample-wise normalized before analysis to correct for sampling bias and other technical artifacts. Recently, we developed an algorithm for the normalization of ecological count data called ‘scaling with ranked subsampling …

Beule L., Karlovsky P. (2021.0). Early response of soil fungal communities to the conversion of monoculture cropland to a temperate agroforestry system. PeerJ, 9(), e12236. doi:10.7717/peerj.12236

Background Alley-cropping systems in the temperate zone are a type of agroforestry in which rows of fast-growing trees are alternated with rows of annual crops. With numerous environmental benefits, temperate agroforestry is considered a promising alternative to conventional agriculture and soil fun…

Swieter A., Langhof M., Lamerre J. (2022.0). Competition, stress and benefits: Trees and crops in the transition zone of a temperate short rotation alley cropping agroforestry system. Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science, 208(2), 209-224. doi:10.1111/jac.12553

Tree strips on agricultural production sites offer many economic, ecological and social advantages. However, the introduction of trees creates a transition zone between tree strips and crop land. Here, trees and crop plants compete for resources such as space, nutrients, water and light, which cause…

Rummel P., Beule L., Hemkemeyer M., Schwalb S., Wichern F. (2021.0). Black Soldier Fly Diet Impacts Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Frass Applied as Fertilizer. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 5(), . doi:10.3389/fsufs.2021.709993

Increased global production of animal-based protein results in high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other adverse consequences for human and planetary health. Recently, commercial insect rearing has been claimed a more sustainable source of animal protein. However, this system also leaves residue…

Dzene I., Hensgen F., Graß R., Wachendorf M. (2021.0). Net Energy Balance and Fuel Quality of an Alley Cropping System Combining Grassland and Willow: Results of the 2nd Rotation. Agronomy, 11(7), 1272. doi:10.3390/agronomy11071272

With the central aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, agroforestry systems have become popular because they can provide biomass for bioenergy conversion and thus help replace fossil energy. This article compares the net energy balances of three biomass conversion techniques for an agroforestry sy…

Beule L., Arndt M., Karlovsky P. (2021.0). Relative Abundances of Species or Sequence Variants Can Be Misleading: Soil Fungal Communities as an Example. Microorganisms, 9(3), 589. doi:10.3390/microorganisms9030589

Plant production systems that are more sustainable than conventional monoculture croplands are the vision of future agriculture. With numerous environmental benefits, agroforestry is among the most promising alternatives. Although soil fungi are key drivers of plant productivity and ecosystem proces…

Schmiedgen A., Komainda M., Kowalski K., Hostert P., Tonn B., Kayser M., Isselstein J. (2021.0). Impacts of cutting frequency and position to tree line on herbage accumulation in silvopastoral grassland reveal potential for grassland conservation based on land use and cover information. Annals of Applied Biology, (), . doi:10.1111/aab.12681

In agricultural grassland, high herbage utilisation efficiency (HEFF), which is the proportion of gross live‐green herbage production that is utilised before entering senescence, is ensured by frequent defoliation. The decision upon which defoliation frequency to apply depends on the farming intensi…