Multiple cropping systems as drivers for providing multiple ecosystem services: from concepts to design

Agron. Sustain. Dev. (2015) 35:607–623 DOI 10.1007/s13593-014-0272-z REVIEW ARTICLE Multiple cropping systems as drivers for providing multiple ecosystem services: from concepts to design Sabrina Gaba & Françoise Lescourret & Simon Boudsocq & Jérôme Enjalbert & Philippe Hinsinger & Etienne-Pascal Journet & Marie-Laure Navas & Jacques Wery & Gaetan Louarn & Eric Malézieux & Elise Pelzer & Marion Prudent & Harry Ozier-Lafontaine Accepted: 20 November 2014 / Published online: 19 December 2014 # INRA and Springer-Verlag France 2014 Abstract Provisioning services, such as the production of food, feed, and fiber, have always been the main focus of agriculture. Since the 1950s, intensive cropping systems based on the cultivation of a single crop or a single cultivar, in simplified rotations or monocultures, and relying on extensive use of agrochemical inputs have been preferred to more diverse, self-sustaining cropping systems, regardless of the environmental consequences. However, there is increasing evidence that such intensive agroecosystems have led to a decline in biodiversity as well as threatening the environment and have damaged a number of ecosystem services such as the biogeochemical nutrient cycles and the regulation of climate and water quality. Consequently, the current challenge facing agriculture is to ensure the future of food production while reducing the use of inputs and limiting environmental impacts and the loss of biodiversity. Here, we S. Gaba (*) : M. Prudent INRA, UMR1347 Agroécologie, 21065 Dijon Cedex, France e-mail: F. Lescourret INRA, UR1115 Plantes et Systèmes de culture Horticoles, Domaine Saint-Paul, Site Agroparc, 84914 Avignon Cedex 9, France S. Boudsocq : P. Hinsinger INRA, UMR Eco&Sols, Place Viala, 34060 Montpellier, France J. Enjalbert INRA, UMR 320 Génétique Végétale, Ferme du Moulon, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France E.<P. Journet INRA, UMR1248 AGIR, 31326 Castanet-Tolosan, France E.<P. Journet CNRS, UMR2594 LIPM, 31326 Castanet-Tolosan, France review examples of multiple cropping systems that aim to use biotic interactions to reduce chemical inputs and provide more ecosystem services than just provisioning. Our main findings are the identification of underlying ecological processes and management strategies related to the provision of pairs of ecosystem services namely food production and a regulation service. We also found gaps between ecological knowledge and the constraints of agricultural practices in taking account of the interactions and possible trade-offs between multiple ecosystem services as well as socioeconomic constraints. We present guidelines for the design of multiple cropping systems combining ecological, agricultural, and genetic concepts and approaches. Keywords Agroecology . Ecosystem services . Biotic interactions . Plant associations . Cropping systems M.<L. Navas Montpellier SupAgro, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, UMR 5175, 1919 Route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier, Cedex 5, France J. Wery Montpellier SupAgro, UMR System, 2 Place Viala, 34060 Montpellier Cedex 2, France G. Louarn INRA, UR4 URP3F, BP6, 86600 Lusignan, France E. Malézieux CIRAD, UR HortSys, 34090 Montpellier Cedex 5, France E. Pelzer INRA, UMR 211 Agronomie, 78850 Thiverval-Grignon, France H. Ozier-Lafontaine INRA, UR 1321 ASTRO Agrosystèmes Tropicaux, 97170 Petit-Bourg, France 608 Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Plant diversity in multiple cropping systems. . . . . . . . . . . 3 From biodiversity to ecosystem services . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Multiple cropping systems and ecosystem services . . . . . 4.1 Multiple cropping to reduce the consumption of fertilizers and water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Multiple cropping systems to reduce the use of pesticides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Multiple cropping systems to reduce environmental impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Guidelines for designing multiple cropping systems. . . . . 5.1 Step 1: Identification of a set of services and associated functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Step 2: Selection of species according to the targeted functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Step 3: How can spatiotemporal arrangement and management improve ecosystem functions and the delivery of services? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Introduction Over the recent decades, agriculture has focused increasingly on the delivery of provisioning services such as food, fiber, and fuel, paying little attention to other important ecosystem services. This has led to intensive systems relying on the use of massive amounts of agrochemicals with a limited number of genetically improved species and cultivars, thus reducing the cultivated biodiversity. There is increasing evidence worldwide that such intensive agroecosystems have harmful effects, leading to a decline in biodiversity and threatening the environment (Tilman et al. 2001; Cassman et al. 2003). The challenge of agriculture today is to contribute to current and future food security while preserving farmland biodiversity and limiting the adverse effects on the environment or even producing other ecosystem services. Significant changes in practices and policies are needed to support this shift from farming practices aiming to deliver a single provisioning service to practices that deliver a range of services (Robertson and Swinton 2005). One suggestion is to increase the complexity of agroecosystems by increasing cultivated biodiversity (Altieri and Rosset 1995), assuming that biotic interactions could provide the functions required by the systems to enhance soil fertility without external inputs and protect crops against pests and weeds while ensuring adequate crop productivity (Doré et al. 2011; Ekström and Ekbom 2011; Bommarco et al. 2013; Gaba et al. 2014). In multiple cropping systems, plant diversity is designed and managed to improve crop production and reduce harmful S. Gaba et al. environmental impacts based on the hypothesis that positive interactions between plants for resource acquisition and mobilization of natural regulation can replace agrochemical inputs (Malézieux et al. 2009). Plant diversity can provide a range of ecosystem services based on the type (positive, neutral, or negative) and degree of plant–plant interactions and on the local environmental and management conditions (Tilman 1999; Diaz et al 2006). Attempts have been made to quantify the links between biodiversity and ecosystem services (De Bello et al. 2010; Cardinale et al. 2012; Balvanera et al. 2006), and several conceptual frameworks have been proposed recently to link biodiversity to ecosystem functioning (Dia (...truncated)