Fig. 1: Risks of antibiotics in soil to crop production in China.

a, b Maps of the cumulative risks associated with target antibiotics and uncertainties associated with the predictions. Cumulative risk quotients for nine target antibiotics were calculated per grid on the basis of the concentration addition principle²⁴. The maps of China used in this study were adapted from the data released by the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation of China (http://www.sbsm.gov.cn; review drawing number: GS(2020)4619). c Density distribution of risks associated with each antibiotic; the ridge line plots the estimated density from predicted data. d–g Convex nonlinearities in the relationships between crop yields and antibiotic pollution risks. The lines (regression lines) and shaded areas (95% confidence intervals) were estimated by generalized additive models, and adjusted (Adj.) R² and two-sided p values of the t-statistic for each model are provided. The T values (thresholds of antibiotic pollution risk for crop yield reduction) were estimated by the “segmented” package in R according to the significant changes in regression slopes⁶⁹. All silhouettes are from PhyloPic (https://www.phylopic.org/).