AI Article Synopsis
- Urban agriculture is enhancing food security in major cities, with a focus on biodiversity's role in improving these systems.
- Data from community rice farms in Shanghai (2001-2015) revealed that introducing soybean borders and neighboring diverse crops helped boost predator insects and reduce pests, leading to higher yields and profits.
- Experiments confirmed that increasing crop diversity not only aids ecological sustainability but also optimizes the use of ecosystem services in urban environments.
Article Abstract
Urban agriculture is making an increasing contribution to food security in large cities around the world. The potential contribution of biodiversity to ecological intensification in urban agricultural systems has not been investigated. We present monitoring data collected from rice fields in 34 community farms in mega-urban Shanghai, China, from 2001 to 2015, and show that the presence of a border crop of soybeans and neighboring crops (maize, eggplant and Chinese cabbage), both without weed control, increased invertebrate predator abundance, decreased the abundance of pests and dependence on insecticides, and increased grain yield and economic profits. Two 2 year randomized experiments with the low and high diversity practices in the same locations confirmed these results. Our study shows that diversifying farming practices can make an important contribution to ecological intensification and the sustainable use of associated ecosystem services in an urban ecosystem.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5967864 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.35103 | DOI Listing |
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