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• Ecosystem services are quantified at large scales and long time series in NE China. • The trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services are characterized. • Human activities are the dominant driving factors of provisioning services. • Synergistic optimization paths of production-ecological functions are proposed. In Northeast (NE) China, the largest commodity grain base and natural forest area in China, both agricultural production and ecological protection require attention. In recent years, land degradation in NE China has increased, seriously affecting the production-ecology synergy. In this paper, four key ecosystem services (ESs) in NE China are quantified: provisioning, water conservation (WC), soil conservation (SC) and sand fixation (SF), and the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and trade-offs and synergies (T&S) of ESs are analyzed. The driving factors of provisioning services and the characteristics of T&S are considered, and the county zoning scheme and the corresponding production-ecological function synergistic optimization paths are proposed. The results show that (1) the provisioning, WC and SF services in NE China have slightly increased in the past 20 years, and the provisioning in the Greater-Khingan-Mountains-Region (GKMR) and Lesser-Khingan-Mountains-Region (LKMR), the WC in the LKMR, and the SF in the Liao-River-Plain (LRP) have more obviously increased. The SC service has slightly decreased, especially in the Changbai-Mountains-Region (CBMR). (2) The provisioning service in NE China mainly shows a synergistic relationship with WC and SF, accounting for 79.1 % and 62.9 % of the area, respectively, and a trade-off relationship with SC, accounting for 52.54 % of the area. (3) Human activities (HA) are the dominant driving factor of the provisioning service change in NE China, with an impact degree of 62.65 %. The LKMR is an exception, as climate change (CC) dominates. The LRP, Songnen-Plain (SNP) and GKMR have high degrees of HA. (4) The number of synergistic optimized (SO), light optimized (LO) and trade-off limited (TL) counties accounted for 19.0 %, 61.7 % and 19.3 %, respectively. Among them, the SO type counties should prioritize improving provision and grain production capacity, the LO type counties should protect basic farmland and decrease trade-offs between ESs, and the TL type counties should improve ecological functions and strengthen ecological protection and restoration. This paper clarifies the main contradictions of ESs in NE China and provides an important scientific basis for ecological protection and restoration, which is important for ensuring food and ecological security and realizing the ecological and efficient sustainable utilization of black soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Tree ring is an ideal indicator of annual total grain production parameters. • Tree growth synchronized with grain production, and concurrent response to climate. • Reconstruction of total grain productivity based on dendrochronology. • To explore the relationship between total grain sown area and climate change. Climate change affects the growth of regional vegetation; both trees and grain crops often change concurrently, such that the annual radial growth of trees shows consistent inter-annual variations with the total grain crop productivity. However, it remains unclear whether they exhibit concurrent responses to climate factors, and that there lacks of the study on long-term high-resolution variations of grain crops productivity. This paper employs a Pinus massoniana tree-ring series from the Tongbai Mountains to analyze the correlations between tree-ring chronology, local climate data and grain productivity indicators (i.e., total sown grain areas (TSA), total grain outputs (TGO), and average grain yield per hectare (YPH)) of Henan Province in central China. The results indicate that temperature in March and August was the main limiting factor on tree growth, and the best concurrent relationship with tree growth was TSA, which has a correlation of 0.747 (p < 0.001) during 1959–2020. Therefore, a 124-year TSA series in Henan Province was reconstructed using tree-ring data from the Tongbai Mountains, which reveals there were two distinct low periods of total grain sown area in the 1920 s-1930 s and 1980 s-2000 s. There are significant cycles of about 2.57a (p < 0.01), 2.89a (p < 0.05), and 10.95a (p < 0.1), indicating that vegetation growth might be affected by large-scale climate forcing, such as ENSO (2-7a cycle) and sunspot activity (11a cycle). Overall, this study outlines a new approach to understand long-term changes in grain production, which is conducive to grain management and socioeconomic sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• 729 land use scenarios for the Grain for Green Project (GFGP) were designed. • They were designed accounting for slope, land use type and population change. • Bayesian belief network was used to quantify the efficiencies of ecosystem services. • The land use optimization schemes were proposed from different objectives viewpoint. • It's helpful to coordinate the implementation of GFGP next and ecological protection. In the 20 years since the implementation of the Grain for Green Project (GFGP), the ecological environment in western China has improved. It is important to study the interaction between the spatial distribution of land use and ecosystem services as well as the interaction among ecosystem services under the GFGP for the purpose of improving regional ecosystem services. In this paper, we explore the influence of topography, climate and social demographic factors on ecosystem services, analyze the trade-offs and synergies among different ecosystem services, and choose suitable regional land use optimization strategies from hundreds of land use scenarios for GFGP from the efficiency of ecosystem services with different objectives viewpoint. Three key findings were obtained. First, grain supply has a trade-off relationship with soil conservation, and so as with carbon sequestration, while soil conservation and carbon sequestration have a synergistic relationship. Second, the implementation of GFGP strengthened the functions of carbon sequestration and soil conservation but weakened the function of grain supply. Third, the conversion schemes for retired farmland under different scenarios provide land use optimization strategies for the development of different ecosystem service objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ecological indexes expressed matching and coordinating relationships were formulated. • Relationships of ecosystem service supply and demand were quantified and mapped. • Spatial-temporal variations of ecosystem service supply and demand were observed. Identifying the characteristics of spatial and temporal changes in the ecosystem service (ES) supply and demand can provide visual and effective information for ecosystem management and decision-making. However, it is difficult to identify spatial and temporal changes in ES because of complex and dynamic relationships and the lack of methods available for integrating the total supply and demand of ES. In this paper, from the perspective of the relationship between the ES supply and demand, two ecological indexes, namely, the match degree of supply and demand (MD-supply-demand), and the coordination degree of supply and demand (CD-supply-demand), were formulated using an analytical framework for ES potentials, flows, and demands. Taking a case study of Quzhou County in Hebei Province, China, as an example, the characteristics of spatial and temporal changes in ES were analyzed using the spatial analytical techniques of a geographical information system (GIS). The results showed that MD-supply-demand and CD-supply-demand were capable of characterizing the spatial and temporal changes in the regional ES supply and demand. In 1985–2015, Quzhou County exhibited a decrease in its MD-supply-demand, indicating a decrease in the carrying capacity of ES. In addition, the study area also presented a decrease in its CD-supply-demand and significant changes in different zones, indicating a decrease in the sustainability of the ES supply and demand. These findings demonstrate that MD-supply-demand and CD-supply-demand are useful indexes for characterizing the relationship between the ES supply and demand and can be used as practical tools for ecosystem management to analyze the characteristics of spatial and temporal changes in ES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]