University of Barcelona

The UB manages an average of 150 EU projects per year, amounting to about 8.6 million Euros per year. Since January 2010, UB is part of the League of European Research Universities (LERU). The activity of the research group “Agroecosystems” at the University of Barcelona focuses on the sustainability of arable systems, as a mosaic of micro and macroscale elements (fields and its adjacent boundaries and non-cropped habitats) and their related fluxes. In recent years the research group on Agroecosystems at the UB has conducted studies to evaluate the effect of agricultural intensification on soil quality and diversity in dryland cereal fields by means of different methodological approaches. The aims were to i) develop proposals for farmland management at landscape and field scales, ii) balance crop production and soil and biodiversity conservation for its functional role for ecosystem services (e.g. soil fertility) in the Mediterranean region.