Global crop production has doubled since the Green Revolution on the average, but crop yield has stagnated or even declined in some regions. In the same time, food demand has highly increased due to population growth and higher living standards. The use of pesticides and mineral fertilizers has improved crop yields but also contaminated food and the environment, thus leading to a global food crisis. Here, we reviewed the historical trends of global pesticide and fertilizer application, cereal yields, and production. Our main findings are as follows: (1) fertilizer and pesticide consumption increased for 35-40 % of the countries; (2) cereal production in 38 % of countries and yields in 47 % of countries either stagnated or decreased from 1961 to 2010; (3) countries showing stagnated or decreased yields are countries with low gross domestic product per capita, mainly situated in Africa, South America, and West Asia. Our findings thus evidence a global imbalance in food production and the usage of fertilizers and pesticides.

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China started a long‐term effort to mitigate desertification and ensure the sustainability of its environment by implementing multiple large‐scale national ecological restoration projects since 1978, but their success has been highly debated for a long time. Here, we estimated the change of vegetation fraction cover (VFC) in the Three‐North Shelterbelt Programme (TNSP) region over the past three decades on the basis of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index dataset from the Global Inventory Monitoring and Modeling System. We evaluate the national strategy of vegetation restoration in North China by comparing rainfall patterns, vegetation change, and national ecological restoration programs on the basis of the Global Meteorological Forcing Dataset and the China Forestry Statistical Yearbooks. We find that the western, central, and eastern parts of the TNSP region exhibited a distinct increase in vegetation coverage. The western region had the highest increase of annual precipitation, but this did not result in the highest VFC increase. We infer that ecological restoration activities are the factor leading to the observed increase in VFC in the eastern and central region compared with the western region. The low survival rate of planted trees in the forest of the TNSP region indicates that it is necessary to improve the mode of vegetation restoration to obtain optimal returns and avoid excessive investment. The success of new strategies, for example, natural restoration and quasinatural afforestation are promising as an alternative method. China's experiences in reforestation will be very beneficial for other countries to promote land degradation mitigation and vegetation improvement in the arid and semiarid areas.

Since the start of the 20th century, many invasive alien species (IAS) have spread rapidly around the world, causing serious threats to economies, societies and the environment. Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is an important quarantine insect species in many countries that spread around the world over the last century. This review collected information on the distribution of B. dorsalis to explore the patterns of its invasion expansion. We found B. dorsalis to be distributed in 75 countries (comprised of 124 geographical distribution regions: provinces or states) in Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Oceania up to 2017. Asia and Africa were the most represented regions, accounting for 86.3% of the total number of countries. From 1910 to 1990, B. dorsalis was only found in five countries, but in the last three decades, it has experienced a sharp increase in its rate of spread, invading 70 more countries. Global temperature anomaly has significantly positive correlation with the spread of B. dorsalis. The results of this review provide a theoretical basis for understanding and predicting the continued spread of B. dorsalis under global changes.

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