Cited by 2,334Land Use and Ecosystem ServicesSocioeconomics of Resources and ConservationAgroforestry and silvopastoral systems

Ecosystem services and agriculture: tradeoffs and synergies

Open access
Power, Alison G.·2010·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Abstract

Agricultural ecosystems provide humans with food, forage, bioenergy and pharmaceuticals and are essential to human wellbeing. These systems rely on ecosystem services provided by natural ecosystems, including pollination, biological pest control, maintenance of soil structure and fertility, nutrient cycling and hydrological services. Preliminary assessments indicate that the value of these ecosystem services to agriculture is enormous and often underappreciated. Agroecosystems also produce a variety of ecosystem services, such as regulation of soil and water quality, carbon sequestration, support for biodiversity and cultural services. Depending on management practices, agriculture can also be the source of numerous disservices, including loss of wildlife habitat, nutrient runoff, sedimentation of waterways, greenhouse gas emissions, and pesticide poisoning of humans and non-target species. The tradeoffs that may occur between provisioning services and other ecosystem services and disservices should be evaluated in terms of spatial scale, temporal scale and reversibility. As more effective methods for valuing ecosystem services become available, the potential for ‘win–win’ scenarios increases. Under all scenarios, appropriate agricultural management practices are critical to realizing the benefits of ecosystem services and reducing disservices from agricultural activities.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1098/rstb.2010.0143

Cites

61 of 61 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Agroecological practices rely on the hypothesis that modifying the agroecosystem by restoring the agro-landscape structure and processes redefines delivery of ecosystem services.

    “Agroecological practices rely on the hypothesis that modifying the agroecosystem by restoring the agro-landscape structure and processes redefines delivery of ecosystem services (ES), some of which are crucial to the long-term performance of agriculture (e.g., natural pest control and natural soil fertility) [6-8].”
  • Some ecosystem services are crucial to the long-term performance of agriculture (e.g., natural pest control and natural soil fertility).

    “Agroecological practices rely on the hypothesis that modifying the agroecosystem by restoring the agro-landscape structure and processes redefines delivery of ecosystem services (ES), some of which are crucial to the long-term performance of agriculture (e.g., natural pest control and natural soil fertility) [6-8].”
  • Agricultural expansion and intensification are major drivers of habitat and biodiversity loss, soil and freshwater degradation, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

    “Agricultural expansion and intensification are considered major drivers of habitat and biodiversity loss, soil and freshwater degradation, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide (1, 2).”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 62 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. IPCC 2007 Contribution of working group III to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
  2. NRC 2005 Valuing ecosystem services: towards better environmental decision-making. Washington, DC: National Academies Press

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Power, A. G.
Affiliations
Cornell University (US)
Corresponding author
Power, Alison G.
Venue
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Published
2010-09-27
Volume
365
Issue
1554
Pages
2959-2971
ISSN
  • 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
  • 1471-2970
OpenAlex
W2114735032
Cited by
2,334
References
62
Citations by year
2026: 146 · 2025: 161 · 2024: 163 · 2023: 141 · 2022: 196 · 2021: 219 · 2020: 194 · 2019: 174 · 2018: 184 · 2017: 166 · 2016: 148 · 2015: 154 · 2014: 116 · 2013: 88 · 2012: 61
FWCI
7.64
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Socioeconomics of Resources and Conservation
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Forestry › Agroforestry and silvopastoral systems
Keywords
ecosystem services, agriculture, agroecosystems, ecosystem disservices, pollination, biological control, soil fertility, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, cultural ecosystem services, nutrient runoff, sedimentation, greenhouse gas emissions, pesticide contamination, agricultural management practices, ecosystem services valuation
MeSH terms
Agriculture, Conservation of Natural Resources, Humans, Ecosystem, Biodiversity

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review