Rapid transgenerational adaptation in response to intercropping reduces competition

Stefan, Laura; Engbersen, Nadine; Schöb, Christian

doi:10.7554/elife.77577

Cited by 14 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…productivity). This observation is in line with previous research showing that a common coexistence history leads to adaptation in mixtures and both higher productivity (Stefan et al, 2022; van Moorsel et al, 2018b, 2018a) and yield stability (van Moorsel et al, 2020). Nevertheless, these studies did not differentiate between adaptation and coadaptation .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Another reason for the limited effects of (co)adaptation in our study might be that the three years of coexistence history might not have been long enough for some species to (co)adapt – and especially that this adaptation results in higher yield (Stefan et al, 2022). It is probably more likely that certain traits were favoured that did not lead to higher productivity but were still important for adaptation (Thompson, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…All six crop species had either no coexistence history (seeds from single plants; single selection history) or a common coexistence history (seeds from 2-species and 4-species mixtures; community selection history) for three years. In the previous years, seeds from the specific cultures were collected and resown in the same culture the following year (Stefan et al, 2022).…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, crop ecotypes specifically bred for mixtures might achieve additional yield benefits (Bourke et al, 2021; Brooker et al, 2021; Chen et al, 2021; Moore et al, 2022). Indeed, ecological studies conducted in grasslands have shown that plants adapt to growth in polycultures, with significant positive effects on community-level productivity (Zuppinger-Dingley et al, 2014) due to less intense competition in mixtures of adapted plants compared to the same mixtures of naïve plants (Schöb et al, 2018) – a result that could be confirmed in an annual crop system (Stefan et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coadaptation of coexisting plants enhances productivity in an agricultural system

Schmutz

Schöb

2023

Preprint

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Growing crops in more diverse crop systems (i.e. intercropping) is one way to produce food more sustainably. Even though intercropping, compared to average monocultures, is generally more productive, the full yield potential of intercropping might not yet have been achieved as modern crop cultivars are bred to be grown in monoculture. Breeding plants for more familiarity in mixtures, i.e. plants that are adapted to more diverse communities (i.e. adaptation) or even to coexist with each other (i.e. coadaptation) might have the potential to sustainably enhance productivity. In this study, the productivity benefits of familiarity through evolutionary adaptation, where one species adapts to its neighbourhood, and coevolutionary coadaptation, where two or more species adapt to each other, were disentangled in a crop system through an extensive common garden experiment. Furthermore, evolutionary and coevolutionary effects on species-level and community-level productivity were linked to corresponding changes in functional traits. We found evidence for higher productivity and trait convergence with increasing familiarity of the plants composing the community. Furthermore, our results provide evidence for coevolution of plants in mixtures leading to higher productivity of coadapted species. However, with the functional traits measured in our study we could not fully explain the productivity benefits found upon coevolution. Our study is, to our knowledge, the first study that investigated coevolution among randomly interacting plants and was able to demonstrate that coadaptation through coevolution of coexisting species in mixtures promote ecosystem functioning (i.e. higher productivity). This result is particularly relevant for the diversification of agricultural and forest ecosystems, demonstrating the added value of artificially selecting plants for the communities they are familiar with.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coadaptation of coexisting plants enhances productivity in an agricultural system

Schmutz

Schöb

2023

Preprint

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“…In fact, domestication and a history of cultivation in monoculture can impair the ability of plants to perform in polyculture (Chacón-Labella et al, 2019;Stefan et al, 2022;Zuppinger-Dingley et al, 2014).…”

Section: Polycultures and Crop Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenotypic evolution of agricultural crops

Milla

2023

Functional Ecology

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1. Food crops are a vital source of nutrition for humans and domestic animals, with an estimated 4 billion metric tons of food produced per year. Crops do not only provide yields, but their traits also play a significant role in regulating the ecosystem processes of croplands, affecting local biotas, water balance, nutrient and carbon cycling. Domestication has led to significant changes in crop traits, making it important to understand the recent evolution of crops and how they differ from wild plants.2. In this paper I review the evidence on how the ecological traits of herbaceous crops have evolved during and after domestication. Loss of seed dispersal mechanisms, increased plant and organ sizes, high rates of consumption by herbivores and fast decomposition of residues by decomposer microbes in the soil, all have evolved independently in domestication processes of different crops.3. I also point out types of traits for which we have not identified common responses to domestication, be it because domestication processes of the different crop species are disparate, or because of lack of strong evidence. Those traits include resource acquisition rates of leaves and roots, and whole-plant growth rates.Then, I discuss research gaps in the field, including how to advance knowledge for those traits that show apparently idiosyncratic responses to domestication. 4. Finally, I emphasize the importance of understanding the interactions of crops with other organisms and the environment to breed crops that deliver yield and other services required from croplands. To this end, I introduce an ideotype for sustainable agriculture, which might inspire the breeding of multipurpose herbaceous crops, in the same way than the ideotypes of the Green Revolution inspired the breeding of elite varieties to foster yields under conventional agriculture.

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Asynchrony is more important than genetic distance in driving yield stability in wheat variety mixtures

Stefan,

Fossati,

Camp

et al. 2023

Crop Science

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In the face of climate change, improving yield stability is critical for food production systems. Increasing diversity in agricultural systems can be a way to stabilize yield across time and/or space. This can be done with mixtures of varieties, which represent a practical way to introduce diversity at the genotype level in agricultural fields. However, in Switzerland, wheat variety mixtures are still rarely used, due to a lack of understanding of the processes driving yield benefits and, consequently, no clear rules as to which varieties to combine. In this study, we used results from a Swiss wheat variety mixture trial to investigate the drivers of mixture productivity and stability. We hypothesized that mixtures composed of more different varieties—in terms of genetic distance but also of morphological, agronomic, or synchronicity aspects—would be more productive and/or stable. We did not find any effects of genetic distance on mixture productivity or stability, but we did observe an increase in mixture stability with reduced synchrony of the components, that is, when the components reacted differently to environmental conditions. This result was only significant in the first year of the trial, which was less productive due to more stressful conditions. This study shows that when combining asynchronous varieties, wheat variety mixtures have the potential to buffer possible yield losses due to external stressors during suboptimal years. While more research is needed to confirm this result, variety mixtures nonetheless represent a promising solution to sustainably increase the stability of wheat production in Switzerland.

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Rapid transgenerational adaptation in response to intercropping reduces competition

Cited by 14 publications

References 94 publications

Coadaptation of coexisting plants enhances productivity in an agricultural system

Coadaptation of coexisting plants enhances productivity in an agricultural system

Phenotypic evolution of agricultural crops

Asynchrony is more important than genetic distance in driving yield stability in wheat variety mixtures

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