Diversifying crop rotations enhances agroecosystem services and resilience

摘要: A significant challenge in our time is to produce sufficient agricultural products on limited farmable land to meet the needs for food, feed, fiber, and industrial uses in the face of a changing climate. Conventional cropping systems mostly rely on inputs, such as fertilizers and pesticides, to boost crop yields. However, excessive inputs increase production costs and entail more direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere that negatively impact the environment. Finding sustainable ways to increase crop productivity with little or no impact on the environment is the primary goal of modern agriculture. This review reveals that temporal-spatial diversification of crop rotations is critically needed to advance toward this goal sustainably. We find that (i) intensified crop rotations enhance carbon conversion from atmospheric CO2 into plant biomass and thus sequester more carbon into soil; (ii) diversified …