How multifunctionality in agricultural ecosystems depends on crop diversity and succession

Positioning agriculture within planetary boundaries, crop production requires redesign of cropping systems for multifunctionality, i.e., managing Ecosystem Functions (EF) for productivity and environmental protection, fertility, climate mitigation and adaptation, farm economy, minimizing potential trade-offs.

We assess multifunctionality at the field scale along two main ecological gradients managed by the farmer: crop diversity and successional stage (defined by disturbance, e.g., tillage, annual and/or perennial cropping).

Drawing from ecosystem and community ecology, we establish a multifunctional framework on how dynamic EF are coupled above and below ground in the agroecosystem.

We compile EF metrics and analyse complementary samples and existing data from three agricultural Long Term Experiments (LTE) and in which diversity and succession are manipulated. LTE provide an excellent empirical platform as biophysical processes can react slowly to management change.

To better grasp how multiple EF interlink below- and aboveground and together determine crop yield in response to crop diversity and succession, we perform short term mesocosm experiments within LTE plots with already developed methods.

We build theory on the roles of crop diversity and succession in EF driving stocks and flows of carbon, nutrients, water, energy, to predict and monitor multifunctionality outcomes, trade-offs among EF, and to identify principles for design of sustainable cropping systems.