Understanding the grassland ecosystem is crucial for improving grassland ecosystem functions and services such as climate regulation, water and soil conservation, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity and gene pool maintenance. However, a systematic and comprehensive review of the relevant literature is still unclear and lacking. The VOSviewer software and cluster analysis were used to visually analyze and perform dimension reduction classification on the 27,778 studies related to grassland ecosystem research based on the Web of Science database. The number of publications targeting grassland ecosystem increased rapidly from 2006 to 2021. Ecology, agronomy, and environmental science were the most popular research categories, and the top journal sources were Remote Sensing, Journal of Ecology, and Ecology and Evolution. The leading publishing countries were the United States, China, and Germany. The top three institutions were the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Colorado State University. Cooperation between different countries and institutions had increased. Keyword co-occurrence network analysis showed that Biodiversity, Vegetation and Conservation were the most popular study areas, grassland management, climate change, land use pattern, and ecosystem impact were the hot research topics. All studies could be divided into three categories by cluster analysis: grassland ecological characteristics including basic physicochemical properties, vegetation community characteristics, aboveground and belowground biomass, and soil structural quality of grassland; driving mechanisms that demonstrated effects of human activities and climate change on grassland ecosystem function; and grassland ecosystem services that focused the influences of different grassland management strategies on ecological services, animal welfare and human well-being. The three topic categories of reviewed studies were interrelated and consistent with each other, and the performances were progressive. This paper reviewed the trend evolution through keyword hotspots and analyzed the future research directions to provide an important reference for scientists to better respond to the balance of herbage and sustainable utilization of grassland and maintenance of ecological security.

Global agriculture faces the dual challenges of resource constraints and international competition, making the transition from quantitative expansion to quality upgrading a central imperative. While trade competitiveness is widely considered a key driver of agricultural transformation, the pathways and mechanisms through which it influences agricultural quality upgrading are far more complex than conventionally understood. Against this backdrop, this study constructs a moderated nonlinear mediation theoretical framework. Empirical analysis based on China’s provincial panel data (2014–2023) yields three key findings: (1) Trade competitiveness exerts a significant inverted U-shaped effect on high-quality agricultural development, revealing a dynamic trade-off between “competitive escape” and “competitive suppression.” (2) Optimization of the Agricultural Sectoral Structure serves as a mediating pathway, and this mediation itself exhibits nonlinear characteristics, further underscoring the nuanced nature of “structural dividends.” (3) Regional innovation capacity significantly moderates the latter stage of this pathway (from Optimization of the Agricultural Sectoral Structure to quality development). Viewed through the lens of appropriate technology theory, a robust regional innovation system can deploy context-appropriate technologies and knowledge, thereby mitigating the potential adverse impacts of agricultural structural transformation on quality-related outcomes. This research thus provides a new strategic framework for achieving sustainable, high-quality agricultural growth.

Libraries are seeing a significant shift in acquisition habits as physical libraries and their workers, services, and users are deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Users now look to libraries to assist them by providing digital resources, tools, or knowledge products via knowledge service platforms for learning and research. The trend reflects how the library's role as an online solution provider widens and they are required to be more adept at managing repositories and innovative services development. This chapter is to share the endeavors and experiences of the National Agricultural Library of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in knowledge services during the unprecedented and uncertain time, which is a process full of change and perseverance, with the hope that it will inspire library colleagues and exchange ideas. Request access from your librarian to read this chapter's full text.

Agricultural green total factor productivity is central to reconciling agricultural growth with increasingly binding resource and environmental constraints. Digital inclusive finance may facilitate this transition by relaxing financing constraints and expanding access to productive technologies, yet its contribution to agricultural green productivity remains insufficiently understood. To address this gap, this study develops an analytical framework that identifies technological innovation as a potential mediating transmission channel and agricultural mechanization as the threshold condition in the relationship between digital inclusive finance and agricultural green total factor productivity. Drawing on a balanced panel of 30 Chinese provinces, the empirical analysis employs a two-way fixed-effects model, mediation analysis, and a panel threshold model to test the proposed relationships. The results yield three main findings. First, digital inclusive finance is positively associated with agricultural green total factor productivity, and this relationship remains robust after robustness checks and endogeneity analyses. Second, mediation analysis provides evidence consistent with a positive mediating role of technological innovation in the relationship between digital inclusive finance and agricultural green total factor productivity. Third, the association between digital inclusive finance and agricultural green total factor productivity exhibits significant nonlinear heterogeneity across agricultural mechanization regimes. The regime-specific analysis further indicates that such heterogeneity is more evident in the relationships involving digital inclusive finance, whereas the relationship between technological innovation and agricultural green total factor productivity does not differ significantly across regimes. These findings clarify the heterogeneous relationships among digital inclusive finance, technological innovation, and agricultural green productivity and provide empirical support for coordinating financial policy with agricultural modernization strategies.