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Portrait of Henrik Smith. Photo.

Henrik Smith

Professor

Portrait of Henrik Smith. Photo.

A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production

Author

  • Matteo Dainese
  • Henrik G. Smith
  • Georg K.S. Andersson
  • Johan Ekroos
  • Björn Klatt
  • Lovisa Nilsson
  • Maj Rundlöf
  • Rebecca Stewart
  • Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter

Summary, in English

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 a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; biological pest control; and final yields in the context of ongoing land-use change. Pollinator and enemy richness directly supported ecosystem services in addition to and independent of abundance and dominance. 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. Copyright © 2019 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).

Department/s

  • Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC)
  • Biodiversity
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • Lund university sustainability forum
  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science

Publishing year

2019

Language

English

Publication/Series

Science Advances

Volume

5

Issue

10

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Topic

  • Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use

Keywords

  • Biodiversity
  • Crops
  • Cultivation
  • Forestry
  • Land use
  • Biological pest controls
  • Dominant species
  • Ecosystem functions
  • Ecosystem services
  • Food production
  • Global synthesis
  • Service-providing
  • Species richness
  • Ecosystems

Status

Published

Research group

  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2375-2548