A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production
Citations Over Time
Abstract
ABSTRACT Human land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield-related ecosystem services can be maintained by few abundant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 crop systems, we partition the relative importance of abundance and species richness for pollination, biological pest control and final yields in the context of on-going land-use change. Pollinator and enemy richness directly supported ecosystem services independent of abundance. Up to 50% of the negative effects of landscape simplification on ecosystem services was due to richness losses of service-providing organisms, with negative consequences for crop yields. Maintaining the biodiversity of ecosystem service providers is therefore vital to sustain the flow of key agroecosystem benefits to society.
Related Papers
- → How good are carabid beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) as indicators of invertebrate abundance and order richness?(2012)58 cited
- → ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REGIONAL AND LOCAL SPECIES RICHNESS: A TEST OF SATURATION THEORY(2008)44 cited
- → Patterns in and predictors of stream and river macroinvertebrate genera and fish species richness across the conterminous USA(2023)14 cited
- → Abundance and species richness in natural aquatic microcosms: a test and refinement of the Niche-Limitation Hypothesis(2002)14 cited
- Bird species richness and abundance: The effects of structural attributes, habitat complexity and tree diameter(2018)