How to implement biodiversity-based agriculture to enhance ecosystem services: a review

Abstract

Intensive agriculture has led to several drawbacks such as biodiversity loss, climate change, erosion, and pollution of air and water. A potential solution is to implement management practices that increase the level of provision of ecosystem services such as soil fertility and biological regulation. There is a lot of literature on the principles of agroecology. However, there is a gap of knowledge between agroecological principles and practical applications. Therefore, we review here agroecological and management sciences to identify two facts that explain the lack of practical applications: (1) the occurrence of high uncertainties about relations between agricultural practices, ecological processes, and ecosystem services, and (2) the site-specific character of agroecological practices required to deliver expected ecosystem services. We also show that an adaptive-management approach, focusing on planning and monitoring, can serve as a framework for developing and implementing learning tools tailored for biodiversity-based agriculture. Among the current learning tools developed by researchers, we identify two main types of emergent support tools likely to help design diversified farming systems and landscapes: (1) knowledge bases containing scientific supports and experiential knowledge and (2) model-based games. These tools have to be coupled with well-tailored field or management indicators that allow monitoring effects of practices on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Finally, we propose a research agenda that requires bringing together contributions from agricultural, ecological, management, and knowledge management sciences, and asserts that researchers have to take the position of "integration and implementation sciences."

Designing agroecological transitions; A review

“…Biodiversity-based agriculture seeks to develop diversity in cultivated species and genotypes at multiple spatial and temporal levels to favour functional complementarities in resource use and biological regulation (Caron et al 2014;Duru et al 2015;Ostergard et al 2001). This "planned" diversity and the landscape-matrix heterogeneity promotes the beneficial "associated" diversity (Altieri 1999;Duru et al 2015;Kassam et al 2012;Power 2010).…”

“…This "planned" diversity and the landscape-matrix heterogeneity promotes the beneficial "associated" diversity (Altieri 1999;Duru et al 2015;Kassam et al 2012;Power 2010). These three forms of biodiversity determine the levels at which ecosystem services are provided to the agroecosystem (e.g.…”

“…1a,b) and landscapes ( Fig. 1c) to develop ecosystem services and, in turn, drastically reduce the use of anthropogenic inputs (Duru et al 2015). Second, biodiversity-based agriculture requires "adopt[ing] a more creative eco-economy paradigm which replaces, and indeed relocates, agriculture and its policies into the heart of regional and local systems of ecological, economic and community development" (Marsden 2012).…”

“…However, this knowledge is too general to be used directly to support design and management of diversified farming systems and landscapes promoting ecosystem services. Methods are still needed to manage the context-dependent features of biodiversity-based management practices (Duru et al 2015). In parallel, social sciences, focusing mainly on economic sectors (e.g.…”

Herbage intake regulation and growth of rabbits raised on grasslands: back to basics and looking forward

“…Designing production systems based on empirical knowledge raises the issue of scaling out, that is the process of transposing an innovation from one farm to another (Hermans et al, 2013). The empirical knowledge developed at one site might not be applicable on another site (Duru et al, 2015). Thus, there is a crucial need to develop scientific and technical knowledge useful for current and potential organic rabbit farmers in revising or designing their production systems and corresponding practices.…”