Conveners
Improving ecosystem services in agroecosystems
- Laura Stefan
- Louise Blanc
Introduction. Global climate change requires that the agriculture sector adapts and mitigate its impacts. The present awareness that six of the nine planetary boundaries have already been exceeded implies that agricultural and food systems reconcile with the environment from which they get natural resources that are depleting (e.g., soil, biodiversity) or whose access is becoming irregular...
In Europe, the specialisation of farms and regions and the disconnection of crop and livestock productions led to major environmental externalities (Lemaire et al., 2014) Still, high-input specialized farming systems are continuing to be developed. Bucking this trend, a few pioneering farmers have intentionally reintegrated (i.e. organized the return of) livestock into crop farms in several...
Introduction
Given the backdrop of global climate change, the biodiversity crisis and the energy transition, agriculture must transition from intensive to multifunctional management (Wittwer et al., 2021). Multifunctionality refers to the ability of ecosystems to simultaneously perform multiple functions, thus ensuring the delivery of diverse ecosystem services important for human...
Until recently, the health of cultivated plants has been approached through "pathogenic" approaches, focusing on chemical control methods against pests. To accelerate the agroecological transition, a paradigm shift is required with "salutogenic" approaches (Döring et al., 2012). These new approaches aim to better understand the natural mechanisms of pest regulation, in order to maintain plant...
Introduction
Given the major impacts of chemical-based agriculture and landscape simplification on biodiversity, alongside climate change and human health, it is urgent to produce food in more sustainable ways (1). Crop fields and agricultural landscapes must promote biodiversity conservation and associated functions, including ecological regulation (e.g., predation, pollination), carbon...
