Ensuring climate-resilient ecosystems: A novel approach to ecological security planning

Maximum Academic Press

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These areas, critical for both biodiversity and global food security, face increasing threats to their ecosystems and economic stability. To tackle this, the team proposes a groundbreaking connectivity-ecological risk-economic efficiency (CRE) framework, designed to integrate ecological connectivity, climate-specific risks, and economic feasibility into a unified ecological security planning model.

High-latitude cold regions, vital for biodiversity and as agricultural reserves, are especially vulnerable to climate change. Rapid environmental degradation, including soil deterioration and biodiversity loss, poses significant challenges to both ecological and economic security. Ecological security patterns (ESPs) are vital tools in spatial planning, identifying critical ecological nodes and corridors to maintain ecosystem stability. However, traditional methods often overlook economic factors and the dynamic impacts of climate variability, such as seasonal snow cover, which is crucial for species migration in cold climates. Current research into ESPs has largely neglected to integrate multi-dimensional factors—such as economic feasibility and specific climate risks—into the design of ecological networks. This gap limits the practical application of ESP frameworks, especially in ecologically and climatically sensitive regions.

A study (DOI:10.48130/aee-0025-0007) published in Agricultural Ecology and Environment on 13 October 2025 by Liang Guo’s team, Northeast Agricultural University, offers a balanced solution that not only enhances the resilience of cold-region ecosystems but also supports sustainable development, ensuring long-term ecological and economic benefits.

This study explores the optimization of ecological networks using a novel approach that integrates ecosystem services (ESs), ecological risk, and economic efficiency. To achieve this, the researchers applied a CRE framework, which combines multiple methods including circuit theory, morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA), and genetic algorithms (GA). The framework was used to analyze the spatial distribution of ESs in 2020 and future scenarios (SSP119-2030, SSP245-2030, SSP545-2030). The results showed that high-value ESs were concentrated in mountainous regions, while lower values were found in central plains. Under future scenarios, regions with ecological prioritization (SSP119) experienced less habitat degradation, while intensive development (SSP245 and SSP545) led to habitat fragmentation and decreased ecological function. By 2030, the core ecological areas expanded significantly under SSP119, from 59.4% in 2020 to 75.4%, while remaining largely unchanged or contracting under the higher-emission scenarios. The study also identified 498 ecological corridors in 2020, optimizing their widths using GA to enhance both ecological benefits and cost-effectiveness. The corridors varied in width based on risk levels, with optimized widths narrowing in the SSP119-2030 scenario, indicating a more efficient network design. Furthermore, the study employed a resistance surface that incorporated both natural and socio-economic factors, revealing the influence of urbanization and agriculture on ecosystem connectivity. The results highlight the importance of maintaining forest integrity and ecological connectivity to preserve ecosystem services and biodiversity, particularly under low-emission development pathways. Overall, the CRE framework offers a comprehensive approach to optimizing ecological networks, ensuring resilience and promoting sustainable development in cold regions vulnerable to climate change and human pressures.

The CRE framework offers a replicable tool for cold-region landscape planning, enabling the construction of climate-resilient ecological networks that integrate ecological, economic, and social dimensions. This framework enhances connectivity in ecologically sensitive regions, ensuring that biodiversity is maintained even under development pressures. By applying the framework in regions like Northeast China, the study provides actionable insights for balancing conservation and development, crucial for sustainable land-use planning.

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References

DOI

10.48130/aee-0025-0007

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.48130/aee-0025-0007

Funding Information

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2024YFD1501702), the Distinguished Youth Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province, China (Grant No. JQ2023E001) and Young Leading Talents of Northeast Agricultural University, China (Grant Nos NEAU2023QNLJ-013 and NEAU2024QNLJ-01).

About Agricultural Ecology and Environment

Agricultural Ecology and Environment is a multidisciplinary platform for communicating advances in fundamental and applied research on the agroecological environment, focusing on the interactions between agroecosystems and the environment. It is dedicated to advancing the understanding of the complex interactions between agricultural practices and ecological systems. The journal aims to provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge forum for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and stakeholders from diverse fields such as agronomy, ecology, environmental science, soil science, and sustainable development.

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DOI

10.48130/aee-0025-0007 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Integrating ecological networks and multi-scenario optimization: a novel framework for constructing ecological security patterns

Article Publication Date

23-Oct-2025

 

A food tax shift could save lives – without a price hike in the average shopping basket

Chalmers University of Technology

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image: 

Jörgen Larsson, researcher at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

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Credit: Chalmers University of Technology | Sara Larsson

More expensive steak, cheaper tomatoes, but the same total cost for the average basket of groceries at the supermarket. A comprehensive study, led by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden has analysed the potential effects of a food tax shift – where VAT is removed from healthy foods and levies are introduced on foods that have a negative impact on the climate. The study shows that a shift in taxes could have both environmental and human health benefits, and means that 700 fewer people in Sweden would die prematurely each year.

Today, diet in many high-income countries is a leading risk factor for certain diseases and premature death. In Western Europe, unhealthy diets cause many times more deaths annually than high levels of alcohol consumption, and about as many deaths as smoking.* Furthermore, what we eat also has a very negative impacts on the climate. In Sweden, the negative impact on the climate from food consumption is roughly twice that of the direct emissions from all Swedish passenger car traffic.**

Current policy initiatives mainly rely on providing dietary guidelines. The European Commission’s own advisory body “Science Advice for Policy by European Academies” (SAPEA) has recommended the use of economic incentives to encourage healthier diets. This new study analysed how such incentives could be implemented in practice using a food tax shift, and what effects a reform of this kind might have. The case examined was Sweden, but, according to the researchers, the results are relevant for most high-income countries. The study was carried out by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Karolinska Institutet, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

“Today’s diets are making us sick and negatively impacting the climate. If we want to do something about this collectively, taxes and subsidies are a good way forward. Our research also shows that this can be done without the average trip to the supermarket for groceries becoming more expensive when selective taxes on certain food groups are compensated by removing VAT on other food groups,” says Jörgen Larsson, researcher at Chalmers University of Technology, who led the recently published study.

Reduces premature deaths and disease

With a food tax shift, VAT would be removed from some foods that we should eat more of according to e.g. the recently released EAT Lancet report. The effects of imposing levies on certain foods that have a big impact on the climate were also calculated.

The study shows that the changes in diet that a food tax shift is anticipated to lead to can prevent about 700 deaths annually among people under 70 in Sweden. This can be compared with the figure of around 200 road traffic deaths in Sweden annually.

“This high figure surprised us, and yet it is a conservative estimate. There is also a lot of suffering associated with unhealthy diets that is not apparent in this figure, such as living with obesity or type 2 diabetes,” he says.

The food tax shift would also reduce the climate footprint of Swedes’ food consumption by about 700,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year. This is equivalent to an 8 per cent reduction in emissions from all passenger cars – or nearly one in ten cars disappearing from Sweden’s roads.

The study focused on four food groups:

• Fruits, vegetables, legumes
• Whole grain products
• Beef, lamb, pork and processed meat
• Sugar-sweetened beverages

The researchers focused on foods with robust scientific evidence for their effects on health or the climate, where reduced consumption of beef and lamb would benefit the climate, while other measures would mainly have health-promoting effects. VAT would therefore be removed for fruit, vegetables, legumes and whole grain products, and levies introduced on sugar-sweetened beverages, beef, lamb, pork and processed meat.

“That the price of food affects the level of consumption is well known. A historical example is beef consumption, which increased by 50 per cent in Sweden during the 1990s, largely attributable to the price of beef almost halving after Sweden’s entry into the EU,” he says.

Price makes a big difference for consumption
The study’s calculations were based on current VAT levels in Sweden, and confirm that price changes have a big impact on what consumers put in their shopping trolleys. The removal of VAT would reduce the price level of these products by almost 11 per cent, leading to an increase in consumption of, for example, 10 per cent for whole grain bread and 4 per cent for fruit and vegetables. The levy on sugar-sweetened beverages would increase the price by around 17 per cent, which the researchers estimated would reduce consumption by about a quarter. 

The biggest difference for Swedish consumers would be in the prices of beef and lamb, where the tax shift would mean a price increase of around 25 per cent, or almost 3 euros per kilo. This is estimated to reduce meat consumption by 19 per cent.

“While it might seem to be a big price increase, it would also lead to a decrease in meat consumption in Sweden by one-fifth – thus returning meat consumption to the same level as in the 1990s. Not everyone needs to become vegetarian for the sake of the climate, but with more moderate consumption, a lot stands to be gained,” he says.

Cost-neutral for both low- and high-income earners
Increases in the price of food usually hit low-income earners harder because this group spends a larger proportion of their income on food. But with the proposed tax shift, some foods would be more expensive and others cheaper, something the researchers see as an advantage for gaining public acceptance for the change.

“That the reform is also cost-neutral for central government also improves the chances of its implementation. In the long term, a food tax shift would benefit central government economically through better public health, reduced sick leave, and lower costs for health care,” he says.

*Source: Global Burden of Disease, 2021

**Source: Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and SLU Future Food (both in Swedish only)

More about the research:

The article Cost-Neutral Food Tax Reforms for Healthier and More Sustainable Diets has been published in the scientific journal Ecological Economics. The authors are Jörgen Larsson, Liselotte Schäfer Elinder, Jonas Nässén, Edvin Månsson, Elin Röös, Sarah Säll, Emma Ejelöv and Emma Patterson. These researchers are active at Chalmers University of Technology, Karolinska Institutet, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, all in Sweden.

The study was carried out within the framework of the research programme Mistra Sustainable Consumption.

During Black Week, on November 26, 2025, the Mistra Sustainable Consumption research programme will hold its final conference, featuring a presentation on the food tax shift study.

Previous publications on food tax shift within the framework of the research programme:

Journal article: Public and political acceptability of a food tax shift – An experiment with policy framing and revenue use, published in Food Policy, January 2025.

Journal article: Understanding opposition: arguments for and against a meat tax in Sweden and their effect on policy attitudes. Published in Environmental Research: Food Systems, 2025

More information about the research, including a recorded webinar (in Swedish), can be found at www.matskatteväxling.se

More details from the study

• To analyse price sensitivity and changes in consumption, the researchers used sales data for 22,000 products from 31 supermarkets in Sweden, which they followed for two years.
• Four food groups were selected: Fruit and vegetables, whole grain products, beef, pork, lamb and processed meat, and sugar-sweetened beverages.
• The researchers used the Nordic Nutritional Recommendations, Livsmedelsverkets generella kostråd för den vuxna befolkningen 2025 (dietary guidelines for adults, which may soon be available in English), the Global Burden of Disease, 2021 study, the WHO tool Diet Impact Assessment model, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences tool SAFAD, which stands for Sustainability Assessment of Foods and Diets, for measures of the climate impact of different foods.

 

Examples of price differences and calculated health and climate benefits with a food tax shift in Sweden

• Beef and lamb would be 22–26 per cent more expensive, corresponding to an increase of 3 Euros per kilo. Estimated consumption reduction: 19 per cent.

• Sugar-sweetened beverages would be 16–18 per cent more expensive, meaning an increase of around 0.3 Euros per litre. Estimated consumption reduction: around 25 per cent.
• Fruit and vegetables would be 10.7 per cent cheaper, resulting in an estimated increase in consumption of 4.4 per cent.
• Whole grain bread would be 10.7 per cent cheaper, meaning an estimated increase in consumption of 10 per cent.

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Journal

Ecological Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108822 

Method of Research

Case study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Cost-Neutral Food Tax Reforms for Healthier and More Sustainable Diets

Article Publication Date

25-Oct-2025

 

AI-powered drone phenotyping reveals key traits for breeding density-tolerant soybean varieties

Nanjing Agricultural University The Academy of Science

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Using time-series data collected across two growing seasons, the study accurately reconstructed canopy growth trajectories and identified key intermediate traits—particularly mid-season leaf area index (LAI) dynamics—that strongly predict yield performance under high planting density.

As global demand for food continues to rise, developing soybean varieties that thrive under dense planting is critical for achieving sustainable productivity. However, traditional field phenotyping methods are limited by low temporal resolution and discontinuous modeling, which fail to capture dynamic canopy development and yield stability. Existing machine learning models typically ignore temporal dependencies in crop growth, leading to poor biological interpretability. To address these challenges, scientists are exploring UAV-based phenotyping and time-series deep learning to quantify canopy traits such as LAI, plant height (PH), and canopy cover (CC). Yet, a comprehensive framework integrating temporal modeling with physiological interpretation for dense planting has remained elusive.

A study (DOI: 10.1016/j.plaphe.2025.100083) published in Plant Phenomics on 24 June 2025 by Yuntao Ma’s team, China Agricultural University, offers a powerful tool for accelerating breeding of density-tolerant soybean varieties and advancing precision agriculture.

The study employed an integrated methodology combining unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)–based high-throughput phenotyping, spatiotemporal deep learning, and dynamic modeling to assess soybean tolerance to high planting densities. Researchers conducted two-year field trials (2022–2023) in Heilongjiang, China, testing 208 soybean genotypes under high (50 × 10⁴ plants ha⁻¹) and low (30 × 10⁴ plants ha⁻¹) density treatments. Multispectral and RGB images were captured 15–18 times per season using a DJI Mavic 3M UAV. Ground-truth data for yield, leaf area index (LAI), plant height (PH), and canopy cover (CC) were collected to train and validate four predictive models—Random Forest (RF), Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Spatiotemporal Residual Network (ST-ResNet). The ST-ResNet model achieved the highest accuracy (R² = 0.90; RMSE = 0.23 m² m⁻²), capturing continuous canopy growth through spatiotemporal feature fusion. The resulting LAI time-series data, along with UAV-derived PH and CC, were fitted using P-spline dynamic modeling to generate smooth growth curves and extract 15 intermediate traits that quantified canopy development rates at different stages. Mixed-effect models adjusted for genotype, density, and year effects, while correlation and SHAP analyses linked these intermediate traits to yield stability under dense planting. Results showed that UAV-based PH estimates aligned closely with field measurements (R² = 0.90; RMSE = 0.05 m), confirming the reliability of the remote sensing method. Canopy cover dynamics revealed significant varietal variation between 28 and 55 days after emergence, indicating genotypic differences in early vigor. Among all extracted traits, mid-season LAI (ΔMeanLAI-mid) exhibited the strongest correlation with yield response to density (r = 0.51), identifying it as the key indicator of density tolerance. Early LAI increase (ΔLAItPH15+14d) and canopy persistence at maturity (ΔMeanCC-maturity) also contributed to higher yields. This integrated UAV-deep-learning-dynamic-modeling framework accurately quantified canopy growth patterns, provided interpretable physiological indicators, and established a high-efficiency, scalable platform for breeding soybean varieties resilient to dense planting.

This study demonstrates how integrating UAV-based time-series phenotyping with deep learning and dynamic modeling enables high-precision, interpretable quantification of soybean growth under dense planting. By identifying stage-specific canopy traits linked to yield stability, the framework provides a valuable decision-support tool for breeders and agronomists aiming to develop high-yield, space-efficient cultivars. Moreover, applying this framework to other crops such as maize or wheat could enhance understanding of density-related physiological mechanisms and inform adaptive breeding strategies under climate and resource constraints.

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References

DOI

10.1016/j.plaphe.2025.100083

Original URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphe.2025.100083

Funding information

This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFC3002802), the National Center of Pratacultural Technology Innovation (under preparation) Special fund for innovation platform construction (CCPTZX2023K03) and Technology Promotion Action (No.2021GG0343).

About Plant Phenomics

Plant Phenomics is dedicated to publishing novel research that will advance all aspects of plant phenotyping from the cell to the plant population levels using innovative combinations of sensor systems and data analytics. Plant Phenomics aims also to connect phenomics to other science domains, such as genomics, genetics, physiology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, statistics, mathematics, and computer sciences. Plant Phenomics should thus contribute to advance plant sciences and agriculture/forestry/horticulture by addressing key scientific challenges in the area of plant phenomics.

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Journal

Plant Phenomics

DOI

10.1016/j.plaphe.2025.100083 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Field phenotyping for soybean density tolerance using time-series prediction and dynamic modeling