Soil organisms provide crucial ecosystem services that support human life. However, little is known about their diversity, distribution, and the threats affecting them. Here, we compiled a global dataset of 60 sampled earthworm communities from over 7000 sites in 56 countries to predict patterns in earthworm diversity, abundance, and biomass. We identify the environmental drivers shaping these patterns. Local species richness and abundance typically peaked at higher latitudes, while biomass peaked in the tropics, patterns opposite to those observed in aboveground organisms. Similar to many aboveground taxa, climate variables were more important in shaping earthworm communities than soil properties or habitat 65 cover. These findings highlight that, while the environmental drivers are similar, conservation strategies to conserve aboveground biodiversity might not be appropriate for earthworm diversity, especially in a changing climate.

Despite its theoretical prominence and sound principles, integrated pest management (IPM) continues to suffer from anemic adoption rates in developing countries. To shed light on the reasons, we surveyed the opinions of a large and diverse pool of IPM professionals and practitioners from 96 countries by using structured concept mapping. The first phase of this method elicited 413 open-ended responses on perceived obstacles to IPM. Analysis of responses revealed 51 unique statements on obstacles, the most frequent of which was "insufficient training and technical support to farmers." Cluster analyses, based on participant opinions, grouped these unique statements into six themes: research weaknesses, outreach weaknesses, IPM weaknesses, farmer weaknesses, pesticide industry interference, and weak adoption incentives. Subsequently, 163 participants rated the obstacles expressed in the 51 unique statements according to importance and remediation difficulty. Respondents from developing countries and high-income countries rated the obstacles differently. As a group, developing-country respondents rated "IPM requires collective action within a farming community" as their top obstacle to IPM adoption. Respondents from high-income countries prioritized instead the "shortage of well-qualified IPM experts and extensionists." Differential prioritization was also evident among developing-country regions, and when obstacle statements were grouped into themes. Results highlighted the need to improve the participation of stakeholders from developing countries in the IPM adoption debate, and also to situate the debate within specific regional contexts. sustainable agriculture | technology adoption | collective action dilemma

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ABSTRACT. Smallholders are crucial for global sustainability given their importance to food and nutritional security, agriculture, and biodiversity conservation. Worldwide smallholders are subject to expanded telecoupling whereby their social-ecological systems are linked to large-scale socioeconomic and environmental drivers. The present research uses the synthesis of empirical evidence to demonstrate smallholder telecoupling through the linkages stemming from the global-level integration of markets (commodity, labor, finance), urbanization, governance, and technology. These telecoupling forces are often disadvantageous to smallholders while certain conditions can contribute to the potential sustainability of their social-ecological systems. Case studies were chosen to describe sustainability opportunities and limits involving smallholder production and consumption of high-agrobiodiversity Andean maize amid telecoupled migration (Bolivia), the role of international eco-certification in smallholder coffee-growing and agroforests (Colombia), smallholder organic dairy production in large-scale markets and technology transfer (upper Midwest, U.S.A.), and smallholders' global niche commodity production of argan oil (Morocco). These case studies are used to identify the key challenges and opportunities faced by smallholders in telecoupling and to develop a conceptual framework. This framework specifies the integrated roles of global systems together with influential public and private institutions operating at multiple scales including the national level. The framework also integrates the local dynamics of smallholders' multiple land use units and their socioeconomic and environmental variation. Spatial spillover effects in smallholder landscapes are an additional element. This framework further establishes the unRomantic, nonteleological, and antifetishistic view of smallholders. It provides specific insights on the multilevel dynamics of smallholder telecoupling and potential sustainability opportunities that can strengthen livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and food and nutritional security. These insights are concluded to be valuable to environmental, agricultural, and food scientists and scholars (both biogeophysical sciences and social sciences), policy makers, institutional analysts, development specialists and practitioners, social justice activists, and others seeking to advance global sustainability including sustainable development.