Scientific community and society articles within Nature Communications

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  • Review Article |

    Carbon mitigation is considered an important and viable pathway towards climate stabilization, but competition for land is high. Here, Canadell and Schulze consider the sustainable implementation of a number of land-based biological carbon mitigation activities and assess the carbon savings achievable by 2050.

    • Josep G. Canadell
    •  & E. Detlef Schulze

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wheat is the world’s second most favoured food source, yet its production has climatic consequences. Here the authors quantify the carbon footprint of wheat production systems and evaluate potential alternative farming practices, with a reduced negative impact on climate.

    • Yantai Gan
    • , Chang Liang
    •  & Robert P. Zentner

  • Editorial
    | Open Access

    The transition to fully open access publishing establishes Nature Communications as the flagship Nature-branded open access journal.

  • Article |

    The evolution of agronomic conditions after domestication in the Fertile Crescent remains poorly understood. Here, Araus et al. show that water availability and soil fertility for crops were higher in the past and that domesticated cereals showed a progressive increase in kernel size following domestication.

    • José L. Araus
    • , Juan P. Ferrio
    •  & Ramón Buxó

  • Article |

    Wind power installations have boomed across Europe in recent decades, yet the potentially negative impact of wind farms on climate remains largely untested. Vautard et al. parameterize operational and planned European wind farms in a regional climate model and show limited regional-scale climate impacts.

    • Robert Vautard
    • , Françoise Thais
    •  & Paolo Michele Ruti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Food security and the conservation of natural ecosystems largely rely on the increase in crop yields. Here, the authors examine global crop yield trends since 1960, and establish a robust statistical framework for estimating historical trajectories and identifying yield plateaus.

    • Patricio Grassini
    • , Kent M. Eskridge
    •  & Kenneth G. Cassman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Between 8000 and 4000 BP, agriculture spread throughout Europe changing consumption patterns and increasing populations. Shennan et al. analyse radiocarbon date distributions and paleoclimate proxies to show that agriculture also triggered regional population oscillations and that climate forcing is an unlikely cause.

    • Stephen Shennan
    • , Sean S. Downey
    •  & Mark G. Thomas

  • Article |

    Social groups often need to take decisions and solve problems together, with each member contributing to the solution in a different way. Zafeiris et al.provide a family of models that allow the definition of the ideal distribution of competences in a group to solve a given task.

    • Anna Zafeiris
    •  & Tamás Vicsek

  • Article |

    Accurate estimates of tropical forest carbon stocks are needed for policies to reduce emissions from loss of forests. By looking at a central area in the Congo Basin, Kearsleyet al.find that inconsistencies in height–diameter relationships across Central Africa cause overestimations between regions.

    • Elizabeth Kearsley
    • , Thales de Haulleville
    •  & Hans Verbeeck

  • Article |

    An enduring paradox of urban economics is why cities support levels of enterprise, such as patents and inventions, higher than the countryside. Here Pentland et al. suggest that the density of social ties provides a greater flow of ideas, resulting in increased productivity and innovation.

    • Wei Pan
    • , Gourab Ghoshal
    •  & Alex Pentland

  • Article |

    Demand for crops is increasing, but it is not clear whether the yields can meet this demand. Using crop yield observations, this study analyses global trends and finds that while yields continue to increase in some areas, across 24–39% of crop-growing regions, yields have stagnated or declined over the past 50 years.

    • Deepak K. Ray
    • , Navin Ramankutty
    •  & Jonathan A. Foley

  • Editorial |

    With a year of publications under its belt, Nature Communications has established itself as an accommodating venue for the natural sciences.

  • Article |

    Invasive species are usually thought to originate from outside a country's borders. Here, using a self-organizing map, Paini and co-workers show that the species most likely to 'invade' the USA are already firmly established within the country, suggesting the need for biosecurity measures within national borders.

    • Dean R. Paini
    • , Susan P. Worner
    •  & Matthew B. Thomas

  • Editorial |

    Nature Publishing Group launches its second multidisciplinary journal, 140 years after the first issue of Nature.

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