Meet the editors

Marcelo L. Larramendy, Ph.D., serves as a Professor of Molecular Cell Biology at the School of Natural Sciences and Museum (National University of La Plata, Argentina). He is the appointed Senior Researcher of the National Scientific and Technological Research Council of Argentina and a former member of the Executive Committee of the Latin American Association of Environmental Mutagensis, Teratogenesis and Carcinogenesis.

He is the author of more than 450 contributions, including scientific publications, research communications, and conferences worldwide. He is the recipient of several national and international awards. Prof. Larramendy is a regular lecturer at the international A. Hollaender courses organized by the IAEMS and a former guest scientist at NIH (USA) and University of Helsinki (Finland). He is an expert in genetic toxicology and is, or has been, a referee for more than 20 international scientific journals. He was a member of the International Panel of Experts at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, WHO, Lyon, France) in 2015 for the evaluation of DDT, 2,4-D and Lindane. Presently, Prof. Dr. Larramendy is Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Cytogenetics and Genotoxicology at the UNLP.

Sonia Soloneski has a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences and is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Cell Biology at the School of Natural Sciences and Museum of La Plata, National University of La Plata, Argentina. She is a member of the National Scientific and Technological Research Council (CONICET) of Argentina in the genetic toxicology field, the Latin American Association of Environmental Mutagenesis, Teratogenesis and Carcinogenesis

(ALAMCTA), the Argentinean Society of Toxicology (ATA), the Argentinean Society of Genetics (SAG), the Argentinean Society of Biology (SAB), and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). She has authored more than 380 contributions in the field, including scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and research communications. She has served as a review member for more than 30 scientific international journals. She has been a plenary speaker in scientific conferences and a member of scientific committees. She is a specialist in issues related to genetic toxicology, mutagenesis, and ecotoxicology.

Contents

*by Shalika Mehra*

*and Anna Androsova*

South East Asia

of Agroecosystems

*and Vito Felice Uricchio*

**Preface XI**

**Chapter 1 1**

**Chapter 2 23**

**Chapter 3 37**

**Chapter 4 61**

**Chapter 5 93**

**Chapter 6 111**

**Chapter 7 137**

Fungal Endophytes: Australian Terrestrial Orchids

*by Zulias Mardinata, Mardaleni and Tengku Edy Sabli*

The Creation of Resistant Berries' Agrobiocenosis

*by Carmine Massarelli, Claudia Campanale* 

Lignocellulosic Wastes for Bioactive Compounds

*by Bagampriyal Selvaraj and Sadhana Balasubramanian*

*by Ayşe Ezgi Ünlü and Serpil Takaç*

Formulations of BGA for Paddy Crop

*by Zoya Evgenievna Ozherelieva, Pavel Sergeevich Prudnikov, Diana Aleksandrovna Krivushina, Marina Ivanovna Zubkova* 

Castor (*Ricinus communis*): An Underutilized Oil Crop in the

*by Swapan Chakrabarty, Abul Kalam Mohammad Aminul Islam, Zahira Yaakob and Abul Kalam Mohammad Mominul Islam*

Dangerous Risk Factors to be Considered for Proper Management

Use of Deep Eutectic Solvents in the Treatment of Agro-Industrial

Impact Brassinolide on Two Fig Varieties

## Contents


Preface

It is currently well known and widely accepted that farmers are the general managers of the Earth's land surface worldwide. Furthermore, they will continue to shape agricultural environments in the coming decades. The generation of increased and improved innovative methodologies and approaches that guarantee the sustainability of crop production, simultaneously with ecosystem services, is a challenging scientific area, largely led by ecologists, agronomists, and theoreticians, who must address this task as a joint effort. Agricultural ecosystems offer a variety of benefits to the global population, and these are recognized as Ecosystem Services. In this context, it has been acknowledged that ecosystem services are both actively or passively engaged in enhancing the well-being of the global population. Accordingly, as defined in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), the main role of agricultural practices is to support provisioning ecosystem services, mainly through the manufacture of supplies and educational management. The ecological tools underlying ecosystem services take into account the complexity of the many possible relationships between species of economic importance and the characteristics of local ecosystems. Furthermore, the consequences of biodiversity on the mechanisms underlying most ecosystem services are nowadays well recognized and known in most cases, both empirically and theoretically. In an ideal condition, most, if not all, ecosystem services should also be considered when resource management decisions are taken and should be included at different scales, both spatial and temporal. It is also important to avoid overlooking the interactions between biodiversity and stakeholders, in order to maximize the benefits derived from such practices and minimize the cost through appropriate decisions. However, relationships between agricultural practices and ecosystem services are, in most cases, not totally understood. The ecological mechanisms underlying ecosystem services include multifaceted interactions not only between organisms, but also among different types of organisms, and cultural practices and stakeholder strategies can either inhibit or enhance the ecosystem services. In reality, mechanistic modeling tools examining the consequences of management options on the provisions of most of the various ecosystem services are still lacking. There is a need for innovative cropping systems to be designed at field and landscape scales, and an even larger scales, to aid future planning, organization, and strategies, in which the complexity of the interactions

encompassed by ecological and decisional networks must be included.

of the ecosystem.

Today, it is accepted worldwide that an AGROECOSYSTEM represents a very complex environmental system in which many species interact, driving a variety of ecological processes at different spatial scales. In addition, agroecosystems are characterized by strong and interrelated interactions among ecological and soil management processes. These interactions encompass, in a general conceptual framework, the relationships between ecological and food webs, hosts and pathogens, and those involving spatial interdependence between localities. Under this scenario, an "interaction networks" model enables researchers in the field to (1) analyze and understand the emergent properties of complex systems, and (2) develop universal rules that allow individual stakeholders to make decisions regarding the outcomes
