Multiple Sustainable Practices Are Crucial for Enhancing the Provisioning of Agroecosystem Services Worldwide

Abstract

Feeding the largest share of the global population, cereal production must enhance sustainability while ensuring food security under global change. Unfortunately, the number of sustainable practices needed to support production, ecosystem services and land conservation remains virtually unknown. We compiled a database of 1570 observations from 349 sites in 57 countries to assess how the number of sustainable practices influences multiple ecosystem services. Our findings reveal that a high number of sustainable practices is crucial for enhancing agroecosystem services such as soil carbon storage, fertility and microbial habitat while supporting yield. Sustainable practices such as crop rotation, limited tillage and incorporation of crop residues were especially important. North America, Eastern Europe and China were particularly dependent on the use of multiple sustainable practices to maintain ecosystem services. Findings underscore the need for integrative strategies employing multiple sustainable practices for mitigating global change, ensuring food security and sustaining ecosystems.

Keywords: cereal production; ecosystem services; management combinations; sustainable agriculture; sustainable management practices.

FIGURE 1

Global distribution of the agricultural studies and diagrammatic representation of the different intensive agricultural management practices and their sustainable counterpart considered in this study. See Table S2 for further information on these treatments.

FIGURE 2

Effect (lnRR) of multiple sustainable agriculture versus intensive agriculture applying a different number of sustainable practices on (a) crop yield; (b) soil fertility; (c) carbon sequestration; (d) SOM decomposition and (e) soil habitat. The error bars show 95% confidence intervals (CI), coloured points indicate significant difference at p‐value < 0.05, significantly positive in red and significantly negative in blue. Non‐significant changes are denoted by grey points. Numbers (n) indicate the number of studies.

FIGURE 3

Environmental factors shape the effects (lnRR) of sustainable versus intensive managements on multiple ecosystem services under a relatively low (1–3) and high (4–8) number of management practices. Panels a and b show the relative importance of spatial, climate, vegetation and soil properties variables in modulating the effects (lnRR) of sustainability versus intensive management on crop yield, soil fertility, carbon sequestration, SOM decomposition and soil habitat under low (a; 1–3 practices) and high (b; 4–8 practices) number of sustainable practices. Environmental shared refers to the percent of shared variation in ecosystem services explained by all environmental variables. R ² values express total variances corresponding to model adj. Panels c and d show the significant (p < 0.05) Spearman correlations among environmental factors and the ecosystem services: crop yield, soil fertility, carbon sequestration, SOM decomposition and soil habitat under low (c) and high (d) number of sustainable practices. The aridity index is positively correlated with water availability.

FIGURE 4

LnRR effects of sustainable versus intensive management practices on (a) soil carbon stocks and (b) fertility under a low (1–3 practices) and high (4–8 practices) number of management practices. Soil carbon stocks prediction power under low number and under high number of practices was R ² = 0.48 and R ² = 0.87, respectively. Soil fertility prediction power under low and high number of practices was R ² = 0.58 and R ² = 0.68, respectively. Maps are conducted at 25 km resolution. Blue indicates locations more dependent on a high number of sustainable management practices to support the ecosystem service, yellow indicates locations more dependent on a low number of sustainable management practices to support the ecosystem service and maroon indicates locations where low and high number of practices have more equivalent effects on ecosystem service. Locations with high uncertainty and areas not represented by environmental conditions in our study are shown in white.