Cascading social-ecological benefits of biodiversity for agriculture

Abstract

Cultivated species diversity can provide numerous benefits to agricultural systems. Many ecological theories have been proposed to understand the relationships between plant species diversity and trophic interactions. However, extending such theories to socioeconomic systems has been rare for agriculture. Here, we establish ten hypotheses (e.g., the natural enemy hypothesis, resource concentration hypothesis, insurance hypothesis, and aggregation hypothesis) about the relationships between cultivated species diversity (i.e., crop diversification, co-cultures of crops and domestic animals, and co-cultures of crops and edible fungi) and trophic cascades of crops, invertebrate herbivores and natural enemies in cropping systems. We then explore the socioeconomic advantages (e.g., yield, economic and environmental performance) of these trophic cascades. Finally, we propose a multi-perspective framework to promote the cascading social-ecological benefits of species diversity for agricultural sustainability. Integrating the benefits of trophic cascades into agricultural socioeconomic systems requires policies and legislation that support multi-species co-culture practices and the willingness of consumers to pay for these practices through higher prices for agricultural products.