Ecology

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Data collectionVirus-host data was collated from various sources. Major sources for the association databases included data shared by Olival et al4., Pandit et al.3, and Johnson et al.13. In data provided by Olival et al (assessed September 2019), host-virus associations have been assigned a score, based on detection methods and tests that are specific and more reliable. We used associations that have been identified as the most reliable (stringent data) from Olival et al4. In addition, a query in GenBank was run to parse out hosts reported for each GenBank submission for viruses presented in each of these three databases. Initially, for each virus name, taxonomic ID was identified using entrez.esearch function in biopython package. The taxonomic ID helped linked to the GenBank databases, identify the ICTV lineage and associated data in PubMed20,21. NCBI TaxID closely follows the ICTV database, but some recent changes in ICTV might not always be reflected in NCBI, so we manually checked names to ensure matching. This included virus genus and family information along with a standard virus name. Host data were aggregated based on the taxonomic ID and associated standard name. Finally, for each virus, a search was completed in PubMed to compile the number of hits related to the virus and their vertebrate hosts using the search terms below. The number of PubMed hits (PMH1) were used as a proxy for sampling bias3,13. The virus-host association data source is presented in supplementary code and data files (https://zenodo.org/record/5899054).$$ searchterm= (+virus_name+,[Title/Abstract])\ ANDleft(host,OR,hosts,OR,reservoir,OR,reservoirs,OR right.\ wild,OR,wildlife,OR,domestic,OR,animal,OR,animals,OR\ mammal,OR,bird,OR,birds,OR,aves,OR,avian,OR,avians\ left. OR,vertebrate,OR,vertebrates,OR,surveillance,OR,sylvaticright)$$Along with the PubMed terms we also queried the nucleotide database on PubMed using the taxonomic ID to find the number of GenBank entries for these viruses (PMH2). A correlation analysis between the PMH1 and PMH2 of well-recognized known viruses showed a high correlation with each other for us to safely use GenBank hits for novel viruses during the prediction stage of the model (Fig. S32).Development of ({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{{{{{boldsymbol{c}}}}}}})
a. Centrality measures of observed network (({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{{{{{boldsymbol{c}}}}}}}))To test if centrality measures (degree centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, clustering coefficient) for viral nodes in the observed network (({G}_{c})) vary significantly between viral families, we firstly used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test. KS test is routinely used to identify distances between cumulative distribution functions of two probability distributions and is largely used to compare degree distributions of networks22,23. For each viral family, distributions of centrality measures (degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and eigenvector centrality) and clustering coefficient within the observed network (({G}_{c})) were compared with the distribution of all nodes in the network using the two-tailed KS test. Secondly, a linear regression model with virus family as a categorical variable and the number of PubMed hits as a covariate to adjust for sampling bias were fitted to understand associations of viral families with centrality measures.$${centrality},{measure}={beta }_{0}{intercept}+{{beta }_{1}{Viral}{family}}_{{categorical}}+{beta }_{2}{PubMed},{hits}$$After fitting the model, node-level permutations were implemented. For each random permutation, the output variable was randomly assigned to covariate values and the model was re-fitted. Finally, a p-value was calculated by comparing the distribution of coefficients from permutations with the original model coefficient.Network topology feature selectionUsing the observed network (({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{{{{{boldsymbol{c}}}}}}})), multiple network topological features for all node (virus) pairs were calculated. The following are topological network features calculated. Features data type, definition and methods to calculate these features are presented in Table S3.1. The Jaccard coefficient: a commonly used similarity metric between nodes in information retrieval, is also called an intersection of over the union for two nodes in the network. In the unipartite network generated here, it represents the proportion of common neighbor viruses from the union of neighbor viruses for two nodes. Neighbor viruses are defined as viruses with which the virus shares at least a single host.2. Adamic/Adar (Frequency-Weighted Common Neighbors): Is the sum of inverse logarithmic degree centrality of the neighbors shared by two nodes in the network24. The concept of Adamic Adar index is a weighted common neighbors for viruses in the network. Within network prediction, the index assumes that viruses with large neighborhoods have a less significant impact while predicting a connection between two viruses compared with smaller neighborhoods.Both Jaccard and Adamic Adar coefficients have been routinely used for generalized network prediction and have shown high accuracy in predicting missing links in networks, specifically bipartite networks25, the information flowing through neighborhoods formed by two nodes might not always be enough to have similar predictive power in an unipartite network. This warrants use of other topology features along with neighborhood-based features.3. Resource allocation: Similarity score of two nodes defined by the weights of common neighbors of two nodes. Resource allocation is another measure to quantify the closeness of two nodes in the network and hence to understand the similarity of hosts they infect.4. Preferential attachment coefficients: The mechanism of preferential attachment can be used to generate evolving scale-free networks, where the probability that a new link is connected to node x is proportional to k26.5. Betweenness centrality: For a node in the network betweenness centrality is the sum of the fraction of all-pairs shortest paths that pass through it. The feature that we used for training the supervised learning model was the absolute difference between of betweenness centralities of two nodes. The difference between the betweenness centrality represents the difference in the sharing observed by two viruses in the pair.6. Degree centrality: The degree centrality for a node v is the fraction of nodes it is connected to. The feature that we used for training the supervised learning model was the absolute difference between degree centralities of two nodes. Unlike the difference in the betweenness centrality, the difference in degree centrality only looks at the difference in the number of observed host sharing.7. Network clustering: All nodes were classified into community clusters using Louvain methods27. A binary feature variable was generated to describe if both the nodes in the pair were part of the same cluster or not. If both viruses are from the same cluster, it represents a similar host predilection than when both viruses are not from the same cluster hence accounting for the evolutionary predilection of viruses (or virus families) to infect a certain type of host.These topological network characteristics come with certain limitations when it comes to the unipartite network of viruses with links formed due to shared hosts and might not truly represent the flow of information between nodes as compared to a bipartite network. Therefore, to account for these limitations, we use multiple network features as weak learners in our model building characteristics summarizing the network through the use of several quantitative metrics. In addition to this, we estimated the feature importance of these metrics in predicting missing links between viruses to quantify the information pasting through these links.Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated to identify highly correlated features and for choosing features for model training (Fig. S33). Virological features included in model training were categorical variables describing the virus family of both the nodes in the pair, followed by a binary variable if both the viruses belong to the same virus family. During the model development, PubMed hits generated three predictive features for each pair of viruses on which model training and predictions were conducted. These included two features representing PubMed hits for the two viruses in the pair (PubMedV1, PubMedV2) and the absolute difference between PubMedV1 and PubMedV2 to account for differences in sampling bias between the two viruses.Cross-validation and fitting generalized boosting machine (GBMs) modelsA nested-cross-validation was implemented for the binary model while simple cross-validation was implemented for the multiclass model (multiple output categories). The parameters of the binary model were first hyper-tuned using a cross-validated grid-search method. Values were tested using a grid search to find the best-performing model parameters that showed the highest sensitivity (recall). The parameters tested for hypertuning and their performance are provided in the supplementary material (supplementary results and Table S5). For further cross-validation of the overall binary model, all the viruses were randomly assigned to five groups. For each fold, the viruses assigned to a group were dropped from the data, and a temporary training network (({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{{{{{boldsymbol{t}}}}}}}{{{{{boldsymbol{)}}}}}}) was constructed, assuming that this represented the current observed status of the virus-host community. For all possible pairs in ({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{{{{{boldsymbol{t}}}}}}}) (both that sharing and not sharing any hosts) ten topological and viral characteristics were calculated as training features (Table S4). Categorical features were one-hot-encoded and numeric features were scaled. An XGBClassifier model with binary: logistic family was trained using the feature dataset to predict if virus pairs share hosts (1,0 encoded output). The cross-validation was also used to determine the optimum decision threshold for determining binary classification (Fig. S6) and a precision-recall curve was used to identify positive predictive value and sensitivity at the optimum threshold (Fig. S8).The multiclass model was implemented in the same way, creating an observed network (({G}_{c})) based on species-level sharing of hosts and randomly dropping viruses to generate a training network (({G}_{t})) to train the XGboost model. The output variables were generated based on the taxonomical orders of shared hosts. A pair of viruses can share multiple hosts, hence we trained a multioutput-multiclass model. Humans were considered an independent category of taxonomical order (label) and were given a separate label from primates. For fine-tuning the multiclass model, we started with the best performing parameters of the binary model and manually tested 5 combinations of model parameters by adjusting values of the learning rate, number of estimators, maximum depth, and minimum child weight (Supplementary code and results).We used three methods to estimate the importance of features for our binary model. Specifically, improvement in accuracy brought by branching based on the feature (gain), the percentage of times the feature appears in the XGboost tree model (weight), and the relative number of observations related to the specific feature (cover). Results for feature importance are shown in supplementary results (Fig. S10).Missing links for novel viruses, binary and multiclass predictionThe wildlife surveillance data represented a sampling of 99,379 animals (94,723 wildlife, 4656 domesticated animals) conducted in 34 countries around the world between 2009–2019 (Table S6)1. Specimens were tested using conventional Rt-PCR, Quantitative PCR, Sanger sequencing, and Next Generation Sequencing protocols to detect viruses from 28 virus families or taxonomic groups (Table S7). Testing resulted in 951 novel monophyletic clusters of virus sequences (referred to as novel viruses henceforth). Within 951 novel viruses, 944 novel viruses had vertebrate hosts that were identified with certainty based on barcoding methods and field identification. Host species identification was confirmed by cytochrome b (cytb) DNA barcoding using DNA extracted from the samples28. We predicted the shared host links between novel viruses and known viruses using binary and multiclass models in the following steps. Out of 944 novel viruses discovered in the last ten years, we were able to generate predictions for 531 novel viruses that were detected in species already classified as hosts within the network. The remaining 413 viruses were the first detection of any virus in that species and thus host associations could not be informed by the observed network (({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{{{{{boldsymbol{C}}}}}}})) data.1. A new node representing the novel virus was inserted in the observed network (({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{{{{{boldsymbol{c}}}}}}})). Using the list of species in which the novel virus was detected, new edges were created with known viruses that are also known to be found in those hosts. This generated a temporary network for the novel virus (({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{temp}})). If the novel virus was not able to generate any edges with known viruses, meaning the host in which they have been found was never found positive for any known virus, predictions were not performed.2. Using ({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{temp}}) feature values were calculated for the novel virus (betweenness centrality, clustering, and degree). For all possible pairs of the novel virus with known viruses that are not yet connected with each other through an edge in ({{{{{{boldsymbol{G}}}}}}}_{{temp}}) a feature dataset was generated (Jaccard coefficient(novel virus, known virus), the difference in betweenness centrality of the novel virus and known virus, if the novel virus and known virus were in the same cluster, the difference in degree centrality(novel virus, known virus), if the novel virus and known virus were from same virus family, the difference in PubMed hits(novel virus, known virus), PubMed hits for the novel virus, PubMed hits for the known virus). Studies and nucleotide sequences for novel viruses are expected to be published and shared on PubMed’s Nucleotide database and in various peer-reviewed publications. Data associated with GenBank accession numbers and nucleotide sequences for novel viruses are presented in Supplementary Data 3 and Supplementary Data 4 respectively. At the time of development of the model, data for all viruses was not shared in a format that would reflect on PubMed’s database, we decided to use the number of unique species the virus was detected in the last ten years of wildlife surveillance conducted by the USAID PREDICT project. These detections will be reflected in PubMed’s Nucleotide database and search term eventually, hence we considered them as a proxy for search terms conducted for known viruses. Currently, evaluation of the effects of this substitution of PubMed hits with the number of detections for novel viruses is not possible with limited data on novel viruses but needs to be reevaluated as more studies are published on these novel viruses. To further evaluate the association between PubMed hits through search term and Genbank hits, we ran a generalized linear regression model with PubMed hits as dependent variable and Genbank hits as intendent variable, accounting for virus families.$${{PubMed}}_{{Search}}left({log }right)={beta }_{0}{intercept}+{{beta }_{1}{Virus}{family}}_{{categorical}}+{beta }_{2}{Genbank},{hits},({log })$$The results indicated that Genbank hits had statistically significant predictive value in predicting PubMed hits (β = 0.72, p  More

All vertebrates examined in this study and histologically sampled (Supplementary Table 1) exhibit polyphyodonty and dentine growth lines (Figs. 2–4 and Supplementary Figs. 2–9) that are morphologically consistent with the incremental lines of von Ebner of extant mammalian and crocodilian teeth: alternating opaque zones, line trajectories paralleling the pulp cavity, and widths ranging between 1 and 30 mm18. All functional teeth were continuously replaced through the development of the replacement tooth, lingual to the functional tooth, resulting in resorption of its base and shedding.Fig. 2: Incremental lines of Mesenosaurus efremovi.a ROMVP 85502, lingual view of fragmented dentary with dashed red lines through the plane of the LL section of the functional and replacement teeth. b Whole view of tooth family LL section near crown apex. c Closeup view of functional tooth LL cross-section showing incremental lines, white arrows. d Closeup view of replacement tooth TR cross-section showing incremental lines, white arrows.Full size imageFig. 3: Incremental lines of Dimetrodon cf. D. limbatus.a Lateral view of Dimetrodon. b ROMVP 85510, maxillary tooth family, photographed in lingual view showing the plane of LL section through the functional tooth and replacement tooth. c Whole view of longitudinal LL section near the crown apex of functional and replacement tooth. d Closeup view of functional tooth LL cross-section showing incremental lines, white arrows. e Closeup view of replacement tooth LL cross-section showing incremental lines, white arrows. Skull drawing was modified from Reisz42 and Brink and Reisz43.Full size imageFig. 4: Incremental lines of Edaphosaurus sp.a Lateral view of Edaphosaurus. b USNM PAL 706602, maxillary tooth family, photographed in lingual view showing the plane of LL section through the functional tooth and replacement tooth. c Whole view of longitudinal LL section near crown apex of functional and replacement tooth. d Closeup view of functional tooth LL cross-section showing incremental lines, white arrows. Skull drawing was modified from Romer and Price41 and Modesto44.Full size imageReplacement pattern in Mesenosaurus efremovi
Replacement in the gracile predator Mesenosaurus efremovi from the Richards Spur locality (Fig. 1) appears to occur as a wave in alternating tooth positions, with every other functional tooth in a sequence undergoing replacement during one event. Gaps in the tooth row represent stages in the replacement cycle when the old tooth has been shed, but the replacement tooth has not yet become functional and is not ankylosed to the jawbone. Frequently, these small replacement teeth are lost during fossilization, but in the case of the Dolese Mesenosaurus, preservation is so exquisite that these unattached replacement teeth are preserved, often in place (Fig. 1e). We found that numerous specimens of M. efremovi have tooth families containing a functional tooth and a single replacement tooth lingual to it, but one maxilla (ROMVP 85456) was observed to have a tooth family containing a functional tooth and two successive replacement teeth (Fig. 1c).The replacement rate found in one tooth family within an M. efremovi dentary was 39 days (ROMVP 85502; Fig. 2), and 34 days for the left maxilla (ROMVP 85443; Supplementary Fig. 2). Replacement rates of three tooth families (mx10, mx12, and mx15) for ROMVP 85457 were estimated to be 46, 36, and 35 days. Thus, the replacement rate for M. efremovi does not appear to vary significantly in one specimen across tooth position, size, or ontogenetic age of tooth.Replacement pattern in other synapsidsIn contrast to the availability of many Mesenosaurus specimens for destructive sampling, other taxa are exceedingly rare, and few specimens were available for destructive analysis. Thus, only a single maxilla of the apex predator Dimetrodon with a replacement tooth in position was available (Fig. 3). The functional tooth had a total of 459 incremental lines, whereas the replacement tooth had a total of 354 lines, resulting in a replacement rate of 105 days. In contrast, the maxillary tooth for the basal sphenacodont Haptodus, was calculated to have functional tooth longevity of approximately 152 days and since neither a replacement tooth nor a resorption pit was present, the minimum replacement rate is 152 days.Similarly, relatively little material was available for the larger varanopid predator Watongia meieri which is only known from the holotype material, with a resorption pit on one of the two teeth (mx19) on a maxillary fragment, but both teeth were missing the crown apex; thus, only a minimum age could be determined using the incremental line counts. The tooth with the resorption pit was determined to be a minimum of 81 days old, while the adjacent tooth not in the process of being replaced was approximately 68 days old. A second maxillary tooth with a resorption pit at mx18 was determined to be 145 days old. Additionally, one complete tooth with no resorption pit was longitudinally LL sectioned and estimated to be 108 days old.One maxilla of the small, very rare herbivorous caseid Oromycter was available for destructive sampling (Supplementary Fig. 3). The tooth with a resorption pit in position mx07 was determined to have a total of 506 incremental lines, whereas the tooth without a resorption pit (mx09) had a total of 426 incremental lines. For the mx09 tooth family, the missing replacement tooth was estimated to have 115 incremental lines, resulting in an approximate replacement rate of 391 days.The left dentary of the large herbivorous caseid Ennatosaurus, known only from five specimens, exhibited two posterior teeth with resorption pits on positions d08 and d07 (Supplementary Fig. 4). Tooth position d08 had a visibly larger and more developed resorption pit, with the functional tooth having a total of 628 incremental lines, whereas d07 had a smaller resorption pit and a total of 567 incremental lines. The missing replacement teeth for both d07 and d08 were estimated to have 136 and 169 incremental lines, resulting in a replacement rate of approximately 431 and 459 days, respectively.One maxilla of the herbivorous edaphosaurid Edaphosaurus had a resorption pit at tooth position mx09 (Fig. 4) and was estimated to have a total of 506 incremental lines. The adjacent tooth at position mx10 had no resorption pit and was determined to have a total of 429 lines. For the mx09 tooth family, the missing replacement tooth was estimated to have 131 incremental lines, resulting in a replacement rate of 381 days.Replacement pattern in early and extant reptilesFor the insectivorous parareptile Delorhynchus the functional tooth had a total of 147 incremental lines, while the replacement tooth had 43 lines (Supplementary Fig. 5), resulting in a replacement rate of 104 days. For the other parareptile Colobomycter the premaxillary functional tooth had a total of 157 incremental lines, whereas the replacement tooth had a total of 59 lines, resulting in a replacement rate of 98 days (Supplementary Fig. 6). For the omnivorous eureptile Captorhinus, the functional tooth was 146 days, and the replacement tooth was 69 days, resulting in a replacement rate of approximately 77 days. For the other eureptile, the highly specialized insectivore Opisthodontosaurus, the maximum tooth age for positions d04 to d07 was 151, 155, 206, and 258, respectively (Supplementary Fig. 7). Although no replacement teeth were present, it was possible to use the resorption pit heights to estimate the replacement rates of 182 and 193 days for d06 and d07, respectively. These rates, although different from Captorhinus are not unexpected since this small, close relative of Captorhinus has a very odd, unusual dentition, specialized for feeding on harder shelled invertebrates.In addition to the above Paleozoic amniotes, two skulls were examined for the extant varanid lizards, Varanus bengalensis and Varanus komodoensis, as well as shed teeth of the latter were also available for study and comparison. The maxillary bone of Varanus bengalensis carried dentition showing six replacement events, but only the mx04 tooth position was sectioned. The functional tooth was determined to have 188 incremental lines, and since a continuous record for the replacement tooth’s incremental lines was not visible, the replacement rate was estimated based on its entire dentine area divided by the functional tooth’s mean line width. The estimated replacement rate for V. bengalensis was approximately 110 days. Unlike M. efremovi, the base of the teeth is characterized by plicidentine, and neither tooth serrations (ziphodonty; Supplementary Fig. 8) nor resorption pits were observed for V. bengalensis.Similar to Mesenosaurus, Varanus komodoensis, a highly endangered varanid lizard, exhibits ziphodonty on both the mesial and distal tooth surfaces and provides a valuable comparison with the fossil taxon. Two isolated teeth of an adult individual that were in the process of attachment, but not yet ankylosed with the jawbone, were sectioned. The age of the first tooth was determined to have 106 lines, and the second tooth had approximately 135 lines. A third isolated shed tooth (due to resorption from replacement tooth or from the processing of food)29 provided by the Toronto Zoo was determined to have approximately 227 incremental lines. Thus, from the age of initial tooth attachment to the age of shedding, a tooth appears to be functional for an average of 107 days. Additionally, as in Mesenosaurus, the adult skull of V. komodoensis (ROM R7565) showed that each tooth position exhibited multiple replacement teeth for both the dentary and the maxilla, also confirmed by the data from Auffenberg30.Replacement pattern in a stem amnioteFor the representative carnivorous stem amniote Seymouria (Supplementary Fig. 9) the functional tooth was determined to have a maximum of 171 incremental lines, while the missing replacement tooth was estimated to have had approximately 36 lines. Thus, the estimated replacement rate for Seymouria was calculated to be 135 days.Replacement rate and body massThere seems to be no significant relationship between replacement rate and body mass (kg) for the taxa examined (Supplementary Fig. 10). Although the largest body sized taxon Ennatosaurus had the longest replacement rate, but the other large species had varying rates, while the smallest taxa (Captorhinus, Delorhynchus, Colobomycter, and Opisthodontosaurus) all have varying replacement rates. Instead, replacement rates appear to be related to feeding behaviour since the herbivorous synapsids all exhibited long replacement rates and great tooth longevities (Fig. 5).Fig. 5: Rates of tooth replacement and age across a range of taxa.a Relationship between the total number of incremental lines of von Ebner (age) for the functional tooth and the tooth families replacement rate or period (days). The symbols indicate the type of feeding behaviour, with circles representing carnivory, triangles representing herbivory, square representing insectivory, and diamond representing omnivory. b Phylogenetic tree of all taxa (n = 11) used in the analyses, displaying the age in millions of years ago (length of bars) and tooth longevity (gradient in branch colours). c Phylogenetic tree of all taxa (n = 9) used in the analyses, displaying the age in millions of years ago (mya) (length of bars) and tooth replacement rate (gradient in branch colours). Reconstructed using the ‘contMap’ function in the ‘phytools’ R package. The tree was modified from Maddin, Evans, and Reisz45 and Reisz and Sues12. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.Full size image More

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Analysis of carbon sources in Guangdong farmland ecosystems under the “dual carbon” targetAnalysis of inter-annual variation in carbon emissions from farmland ecosystems in GuangdongGuangdong’s carbon emissions from farmland ecosystems showed an increasing trend year by year during 2001–2017 (Fig. 1a), with carbon emissions gradually reaching a peak of 4.153 million t a−1 in 2016 from 3.554 million t a−1 in 2001, but decreasing year by year from 2017 onwards. Eventually it’s decreasing to 3.533 million t a−1 by 2020. Showing that Guangdong’s farmland ecosystem carbon emissions have remained relatively flat over the past 20 years, with an average annual carbon emission of 3.7624 million t a−1. The carbon emissions per unit arable land area of Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems show an increasing trend year by year (Fig. 1b), from 1.12 t ha−1 in 2001 to 2.03 t ha−1 in 2020, an increase of 81.25% over 20 years, with an average annual carbon emission per unit arable land area of 1.43 t ha−1. While the carbon emissions per unit sown area show the opposite trend to the total carbon emissions, from 2001 to 2016, showing a decreasing trend year by year. The carbon emissions per unit of sown area decreased from 1.50 t ha−1 in 2001 to 1.01 t ha−1 in 2016 and then started to increase year by year from 2017 to 1.26 t ha−1 in 2020, with an overall decrease of 16% and an average annual carbon emission per unit of sown area of 1.19 t ha−1.Figure 1(a) Inter-annual variation of carbon emissions from farmland ecosystems in Guangdong; (b) inter-annual variation in carbon emissions per unit area of farmland ecosystems in Guangdong.Full size imageAnalysis of carbon sources in Guangdong farmland ecosystemsThe carbon emissions from agricultural production power (estimated by the total power of agricultural diesel and agricultural machinery) in Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems show an increasing trend year by year (Fig. 1a), from 411,000 t a−1 in 2001 to 513,000 t a−1 in 2020, an increase of nearly 25% in 20 years. Carbon emissions from tillage and irrigation inputs are relatively flat, from 116,000 t a−1 in 2001 to 109,000 t a−1 in 2020, with an average of 107,000 t a−1 over the last 20 years. Carbon emissions from chemicals in agricultural production (estimated by fertilizer, pesticide, and agricultural film inputs) have the greatest impact on the overall emissions, with carbon emissions from agricultural chemicals reaching 2.9097 million t a−1 in 2020, accounting for 82.36% of total carbon emissions from farmland ecosystems, but a relatively flat trend. Although the share of carbon emissions from agricultural production power is increasing year by year, the contribution of carbon emissions due to inputs of agricultural chemicals is still in an absolute position. The use of agricultural chemicals directly affects the carbon emissions of Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems. Therefore, a more detailed analysis of the carbon emissions of various agricultural chemicals is necessary in order to make carbon reduction proposals.Depending on Fig. 2a, although the proportion of carbon emissions caused by agricultural films has been increasing year by year, chemical fertilizers still occupy an absolute position, with their carbon emissions accounting for 78.45% of agricultural chemicals on average in the past 20 years. Which the average proportions of carbon emissions caused by pesticides and agricultural films are 15.17% and 6.38% respectively. Among the carbon emissions from various fertilizers (Fig. 2b), the annual average share of carbon emissions in the past 20 years is distributed from the largest to the smallest: 81.63% from nitrogen fertilizers, 9.57% from compound fertilizers, 5.60% from phosphate fertilizers and 3.20% from potash fertilizers. From the trend of carbon emissions of various types of fertilizers, we can learn that the carbon emissions of nitrogen fertilizers have been decreasing year by year, from 85.63% in 2001 to 78.10% in 2020, and the emissions have slowly risen from 2.061 million t a−1 in 2001 to a peak of 2.1276 million t a−1 in 2016, then gradually decreased to 1.7797 million t a−1 in 2020. Compound fertilizers, on the other hand, rose from 6.17% in 2001 to 11.40% in 2020, an increase of nearly 85%, and their carbon emissions rose year by year from 148,600 t a−1 to a peak of 305,200 t a−1 in 2016 and then gradually fell to 259,900 t a−1 in 2020, an increase of 74.90%. The share of carbon emissions from potash is relatively stable, rising from 2.89% to 3.29%, reaching a peak of 91,800 t a−1 in 2016 and then gradually decreasing to 75,500 t a−1 in 2020. The share of carbon emissions from phosphate fertilizers is also on a year-on-year rise, from 5.31% to 7.20%, an increase of 37.47%. However, the carbon emissions from phosphate fertilizers do not produce a peak in 2016 but keep increasing in a relatively stable trend, with its carbon emissions rising from 127,800 t a−1 in 2001 to 164,100 t a−1 in 2020, an increase of 28.40%.Figure 2(a) Proportion of carbon emissions from various types of agricultural chemicals in Guangdong farmland ecosystems; (b) proportion of carbon emissions from different fertilizer types in Guangdong farmland ecosystems.Full size imageAnalysis of carbon sequestration in Guangdong farmland ecosystems under the “dual carbon” targetAnalysis of inter-annual variation in the carbon sequestration function of Guangdong farmland ecosystemsIn the inter-annual variation of carbon sequestration function of farmland ecosystems in Guangdong (Fig. 3a), although there are fluctuations in the variation of total carbon sequestration in farmland ecosystems, the overall decrease is not significant. With the total carbon sequestration decreasing from 21.3176 million t a−1 in 2001 to 19.1178 million t a−1 in 2020, a decrease of 10.32% in the last 20 years, and the average annual carbon sequestration is 19.0363 million t a−1, among which the total carbon sequestration in 2008 is the lowest, only 17.2033 million t a−1.Figure 3(a) Carbon sequestration function of farmland ecosystems in Guangdong; (b) inter-annual variation of carbon sequestration function per unit area of farmland ecosystems in Guangdong.Full size imageThe total carbon sequestered in 2008 was the lowest at 17.2033 million t a−1. The inter-annual variation of carbon sequestration by food crops (paddy, wheat, corn, legumes, yams, and other food crops) is similar to that of farmland ecosystems, decreasing from 13.9742 million t a−1 to 10.209 million t a−1, a decrease of 27%. The inter-annual variation of carbon sequestration by cash crops (sugarcane, peanuts, Canola, and tobacco) and vegetables generally shows a stable upward trend, with carbon sequestration increasing by 15.54% and 55.54% respectively over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, the amount of carbon sequestered per unit sown area in Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems was generally flat (Fig. 3b), with an average annual carbon sequestration per unit sown area of 4.31 t ha−1. While the amount of carbon sequestered per unit arable land area showed an increasing trend, especially in 2017, when it started to rise rapidly, from 6.82 t ha−1 per unit arable land area in 2001 to 10.97 t ha−1 per unit arable land area in 2020, an increase of 60.85%. The average annual carbon sequestration per arable area is 7.25 t ha−1, an increase of 56.71% in the 4 years from 2017 to 2020.Analysis of the role of crop carbon sequestrations in Guangdong’s farmland ecosystemsAs can be seen from Fig. 4a, food crops play the largest role in carbon sequestration in Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems, with an average share of 56.95% of the total carbon sequestration in the past 20 years. Its share tends to decline over time, but the amount of carbon sequestered by food crops in Guangdong still reaches 10.209 million t a−1 in 2020. The carbon sequestration role of cash crops is next, rising from 29.43% in 2001 to 37.92% in 2020, with an average share of 36.17%, an increase of 28.85%, and average annual carbon sequestration of 6.8863 million t a−1. The inter-year variation of vegetables carbon sequestration also shows an increasing trend, rising from 5.02 to 8.73%, with an increase of 73.90%, and average annual carbon sequestration of 1.13112 million t a−1.Figure 4(a) Proportion of carbon sequestered by various crops in Guangdong farmland ecosystems. (b) Proportion of carbon sequestered by various food crops in Guangdong farmland ecosystems; (c) proportion of carbon sequestered by various cash crops in Guangdong farmland ecosystems.Full size imageWhen the carbon sequestration capacity of food (Fig. 4b) and cash crops (Fig. 4c) in Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems is broken down, it is easy to see that paddy is in an absolute position in terms of carbon sequestration among food crops, with an average share of 83.81% over the past 20 years and average annual carbon sequestration of 8.8946 million t a−1. Especially since 2017, the carbon sequestration share of paddy has risen to over 87% and will remain until 2020. Also, sugarcane’s share of carbon sequestration in cash crops is absolute, with average annual share of 86.73% and an average annual carbon sequestration of 5.9712 million t a−1. while, peanut’s share of carbon sequestration in cash crops is also not small, with average annual share of 12.47% and an average annual carbon sequestration of 0.8606 million t a−1.An analysis of the inter-annual variation in carbon sequestration of various crops (Fig. 5) shows that paddy and sugar cane play the largest role in carbon sequestration in Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems. Their combined annual average carbon sequestration amounting to 14.8658 million t a−1, accounting for 78.09% of the total annual average carbon sequestration in Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems. Vegetables, peanuts, and yams also play a significant role in carbon sequestration, with the combined annual average carbon sequestration of the three species being 2.9936 million t a−1, accounting for 15.73% of the total annual average carbon sequestration.Figure 5Comparison of carbon sequestration by various crops in Guangdong farmland ecosystems.Full size imageAnalysis of the carbon footprint of Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems under the “dual carbon” targetThe carbon footprint of Guangdong’s farmland ecosystem ((CEF)) is 531,100 ha a−1 per year, showing a general decrease (Fig. 6), with a 59.65% decrease from 513,900 ha a−1 in 2001 to 321,900 ha a−1 in 2020. The carbon footprint of Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems in the past 20 years (the peak value is 611,500 in 2008 ha a−1) is smaller than the ecological carrying capacity (i.e. the arable land area, the lowest value is 1.7421 million ha a−1 in 2020), and is in a state of carbon ecological surplus. Guangdong’s farmland carbon surplus ((CS)) shows a decreasing trend year by year (Fig. 6), from 2.1611 million ha a−1 in 2001 to 1.4202 million ha a−1 in 2020, a decrease of 45.61%. Although the carbon footprint and the inter-annual variation of the carbon surplus both show a decreasing trend, the productive area required to absorb the carbon emissions from farmland (i.e. the carbon footprint) rises from 16.44 to 18.48% of the arable land area in the same period.Figure 6Inter-annual variation of carbon footprint and ecological surplus of farmland ecosystems in Guangdong.Full size imageAn overview of the interannual variability of carbon emissions, sequestrations and footprints of farmland ecosystems in GuangdongIn the above analysis of the inter-annual variation of carbon emissions, sequestration, and footprint of Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems, it was found that 2017 was a special year. After 2017, which the total carbon emissions from Guangdong’s farmland ecosystems and carbon emissions due to agricultural chemicals (Fig. 1a), carbon emissions per unit of arable land area and sown area (Fig. 1b), carbon sequestration per unit of arable land area (Fig. 3b) and carbon footprint and carbon surplus (Fig. 6) all show a large turnaround. Based on the analysis of the factors after 2017 in Table 3, it can be seen that the number of various fertilizers using is gradually decreasing after 2017, especially the number of nitrogen fertilizers decreased by 149,600 t a−1 in 2018 compared with the amount of the previous year, a decrease of 14.44% in a single year, and the carbon emission decreased by 316,600 t a−1. The arable land area in Guangdong is decreasing after 2017, from 2017 to 2019, it decreased by 697,800 ha, a decrease of 26.84%, but the total carbon sequestration still remains above 19 million t a−1 (Fig. 3a), and while the area of arable land in Guangdong is decreasing, the area sown is climbing. The ratio of sown area to arable land area is used as the number of tillage per unit of arable land area in the paper, and the number of tillage per unit of the arable land area rises from 1.63 ha ha−1 in 2017 to 2.56 ha ha−1 in 2020.Table 3 Inter-annual variation of selected factors in Guangdong agro-ecosystems, 2017–2020.Full size tableBased on the conclusions obtained, the author looked up the agriculture-related policies of Guangdong Province in 2016 and 2017. And found that on 30 December 2016, the Guangdong Provincial People’s Government, in response to the soil prevention and control plan of the Central Government, formulated and issued to the cities and counties under its jurisdiction the Implementation Plan of the Guangdong Provincial Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (here in after referred to as the “Plan”). The Plan encourages farmers in all areas to reduce the number of chemical fertilizers and apply pesticides scientifically. The effectiveness of the implementation of the Plan in Guangdong Province is remarkable as seen through the changes in the application of various fertilizers, which in the aspect of reducing fertilizer application alone resulted in a 344,900 t ha−1 reduction in carbon emissions from fertilizer inputs in 2018 compared to 2017. At the same time, the number of farmland tillage has increased, and the area of arable land has been reduced, but the total sown area of crops has remained relatively constant. In 2019, while the area of arable land in Guangdong (actual data on arable land in 2020 is missing, and the forecast alone may cause too much error, so 2019 is used as an example) is 69.78 ha less than that in 2017, the total sown area has increased by 22.43 ha, and the total agricultural output value still increased by RMB 64 billion. Which shows that the utilization rate of arable land and the output value per unit of arable land in Guangdong have both increased. More

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