The DOI matches its Crossref record; 67 of the 68 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
REVIEW: Do Polycultures Promote Win-Wins or Trade-Offs in Agricultural Ecosystem Services? A Meta-Analysis
Open accessAbstract
Summary: Agriculture comprises the largest global land use, makes it a leading cause of habitat loss. It is therefore critical to identify how to best construct agricultural systems that can simultaneously provide food and other ecosystem services. This challenge requires that we determine how to maximize win‐win relationships and minimize trade‐offs between services. Through meta‐analysis, we tested whether within‐field crop diversification (polyculture) can lead to win‐win relationships between two ecosystem services: yield of a focal crop species and biocontrol of crop pests. We selected only studies that recorded both services (N = 26 studies; 301 observations), allowing us to better determine the underlying mechanisms of our principal findings. We calculated log‐response ratios for both ecosystem services in mono‐ and polycultures. We found win‐win relationships between per‐plant yield of the primary crop and biocontrol in polyculture systems that minimized intraspecific competition via substitutive planting. Additionally, we found beneficial effects on biocontrol with no difference in per‐unit area yield of the primary crop in polyculture fields at high cropping densities (additive planting) where legumes were used as the secondary crop. These results suggest that there is a strong potential for win‐win relationships between biocontrol and per‐unit area yield under certain scenarios. Our findings were consistent across geographical regions and by type of primary crop. We did not find evidence that biocontrol had an effect on yield, but rather, both were independently affected by polycultural cropping. Synthesis and applications. We show that well‐designed polycultures can produce win‐win outcomes between per‐plant, and potentially per‐unit area, primary crop yield and biocontrol. Biocontrol services are consistently enhanced in polycultures, so polyculture management that focuses on yield optimization is likely to be the best strategy for maximizing both services. In doing so, we suggest that practitioners utilize polycultures that decrease plant–plant competition through a substitution of relatively large quantities of the primary crop for compatibly harvestable secondary crops. Additionally, if planting at high cropping densities, it is important that legumes be the secondary crop.
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“This knowledge is limited by existing data and performance measures predominantly focused on single crops, rather than complete rotations.”
From An Actor-Oriented Multi-Criteria Assessment Framework to Support a Transition towards Sustainable Agricultural Systems Based on Crop Diversification (2020) · cites this paper as [11]
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“Building upon the work of others (Poveda, Gomez & Martinez 2008; Power 2010; Letourneau et al. 2011; Cardinale et al. 2012; Kremen & Miles 2012), this is the first synthesis study, to the best of our knowledge, to directly assess how biocontrol and yield are simultaneously affected by polycultural cropping.”
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Dardonville, M. (2021) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/d4a00240zb91ez4a76z9299z54fa70dfabee
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Metadata
- Authors
- Iverson, A. L., Marín, L. E., Ennis, K. K., Gonthier, D. J., Connor‐Barrie, B. T., Remfert, J. L., Cardinale, B. J., & Perfecto, I.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- University of California, Santa Cruz (US)
- School of Natural Resources and Environment University of Michigan 440 Church Street Ann Arbor MI 48109 USA
- Corresponding author
- Iverson, Aaron L.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Ecology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-10-03
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1593-1602
- ISSN
- 0021-8901 (ISSN-L)
- 1365-2664
- OpenAlex
- W2016683789
- Cited by
- 214
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 28 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 23.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Journal of Applied Ecology (publishedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- NSF (1050680)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Agronomic Practices and Intercropping Systems
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Forestry › Agroforestry and silvopastoral systems
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Insect Science › Insect-Plant Interactions and Control
- Keywords
- polyculture, crop diversification, ecosystem services, biological control, crop yield, win-win relationships, trade-offs, intraspecific competition, Fabaceae, secondary crops, agroecology
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