Agricultural diversification promotes multiple ecosystem services without compromising yield

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Diversification practices benefit biodiversity, pollination, pest control, nutrient cycling, soil fertility, and water regulation.

Abstract

Enhancing biodiversity in cropping systems is suggested to promote ecosystem services, thereby reducing dependency on agronomic inputs while maintaining high crop yields. We assess the impact of several diversification practices in cropping systems on above- and belowground biodiversity and ecosystem services by reviewing 98 meta-analyses and performing a second-order meta-analysis based on 5160 original studies comprising 41,946 comparisons between diversified and simplified practices. Overall, diversification enhances biodiversity, pollination, pest control, nutrient cycling, soil fertility, and water regulation without compromising crop yields. Practices targeting aboveground biodiversity boosted pest control and water regulation, while those targeting belowground biodiversity enhanced nutrient cycling, soil fertility, and water regulation. Most often, diversification practices resulted in win-win support of services and crop yields. Variability in responses and occurrence of trade-offs highlight the context dependency of outcomes. Widespread adoption of diversification practices shows promise to contribute to biodiversity conservation and food security from local to global scales.

Related collections

Most cited references 38

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement.

David Moher, Alessandro Liberati, Jennifer Tetzlaff … (2009)

0 comments Cited 7181 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test

Jos I. M. Egger, G D Smith, M. Schneider … (1997)

0 comments Cited 6483 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test.

M. Egger, G Davey Smith, M. Schneider … (1997)

Funnel plots (plots of effect estimates against sample size) may be useful to detect bias in meta-analyses that were later contradicted by large trials. We examined whether a simple test of asymmetry of funnel plots predicts discordance of results when meta-analyses are compared to large trials, and we assessed the prevalence of bias in published meta-analyses. Medline search to identify pairs consisting of a meta-analysis and a single large trial (concordance of results was assumed if effects were in the same direction and the meta-analytic estimate was within 30% of the trial); analysis of funnel plots from 37 meta-analyses identified from a hand search of four leading general medicine journals 1993-6 and 38 meta-analyses from the second 1996 issue of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Degree of funnel plot asymmetry as measured by the intercept from regression of standard normal deviates against precision. In the eight pairs of meta-analysis and large trial that were identified (five from cardiovascular medicine, one from diabetic medicine, one from geriatric medicine, one from perinatal medicine) there were four concordant and four discordant pairs. In all cases discordance was due to meta-analyses showing larger effects. Funnel plot asymmetry was present in three out of four discordant pairs but in none of concordant pairs. In 14 (38%) journal meta-analyses and 5 (13%) Cochrane reviews, funnel plot asymmetry indicated that there was bias. A simple analysis of funnel plots provides a useful test for the likely presence of bias in meta-analyses, but as the capacity to detect bias will be limited when meta-analyses are based on a limited number of small trials the results from such analyses should be treated with considerable caution.

0 comments Cited 1602 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Sci Adv

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Adv

Journal ID (publisher-id): SciAdv

Journal ID (hwp): advances

Title: Science Advances

Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science

ISSN (Electronic): 2375-2548

Publication date Collection: November 2020

Publication date (Electronic): 04 November 2020

Volume: 6

Issue: 45

Electronic Location Identifier: eaba1715

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.

[2 ]Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences (DiSSPA-Entomology), University of Bari, Bari, Italy.

[3 ]Agroecology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.

[4 ]Department of Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, USA.

[5 ]Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Biodiversity Research Center and Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

[6 ]Plant-Soil-Interactions, Research Division Agroecology and Environment, Agroscope, Switzerland.

[7 ]Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.

[8 ]Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Iowa, USA.

[9 ]Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.

Author notes

[* ]Corresponding author. Email: giovanni.tamburini@ 123456uniba.it

[†]

Present address: Westlake University, School of Engineering, Hangzhou, China.

Author information

Giovanni Tamburini http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7546-8183

Riccardo Bommarco http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8888-0476

Thomas Cherico Wanger http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0435-1153

Claire Kremen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6909-4605

Marcel G. A. van der Heijden http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7040-1924

Sara Hallin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9069-9024

Article

Publisher ID: aba1715

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba1715

PMC ID: 7673676

PubMed ID: 33148637

SO-VID: 77563110-2124-4715-a8fb-c9d8f628928a

Copyright © Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date received : 11 November 2019

Date accepted : 18 September 2020

Funding

Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001862, Swedish Research Council Formas;

Award ID: 941-2015-1792

Custom metadata

Copyeditor Mariane Belen

Data availability:

Agricultural diversification promotes multiple ecosystem services without compromising yield

Read this article at

Abstract

Abstract

Related collections

Irish Journal of Agricultural and Food Research

Most cited references 38

Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement.

Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test

Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test.

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Author information

Article

History

Funding

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Cited by 169

Most referenced authors 1,027