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Diverse perennial crop mixtures sustain higher productivity over time based on ecological complementarity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2011

Valentín D. Picasso ,
E. Charles Brummer ,
Matt Liebman ,
Philip M. Dixon  and
Brian J. Wilsey
Valentín D. Picasso*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Producción Animal y Pasturas, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de la República, Garzón 780, Montevideo 12900, Uruguay.
E. Charles Brummer
Affiliation:
The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, 2510 Sam Noble Parkway, Ardmore, OK 73401, USA.
Matt Liebman
Affiliation:
Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
Philip M. Dixon
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
Brian J. Wilsey
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology, Organismal and Evolutionary Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
*
*Corresponding author: vpicasso@gmail.com
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Abstract

Cropping systems that rely on renewable energy and resources and are based on ecological principles could be more stable and productive into the future than current monoculture systems with serious unintended environmental consequences such as soil erosion and water pollution. In nonagricultural systems, communities with higher species diversity have higher productivity and provide other ecosystem services. However, communities of well-adapted crop species selected for biomass production may respond differently to increasing diversity. Diversity effects may be due to complementarity among species (complementary resource use and facilitative interactions) or positive selection effects (e.g., species with higher productivity dominate the mixture), and these effects may change over time or across environments. Our goal was to identify the ecological mechanisms causing diversity effects in a biodiversity experiment using agriculturally relevant species, and evaluate the implications for the design of sustainable cropping systems. We seeded seven perennial forage species in a replicated field experiment at two locations in Iowa, USA, and evaluated biomass productivity of monocultures and two- to six-species mixtures over 3 years after the establishment year under management systems of contrasting intensity: one or three harvests per year. Productivity increased with seeded species richness in all environments, and the positive relationship did not change over time. Polyculture overyielding was due to complementarity among species in the community rather than to selection effects of individual species. Complementarity increased as a log-linear function of species richness in all environments, and this trend was consistent across years. Legume–grass facilitation may explain much of this complementarity effect. Although individual species with high biomass production had a major effect on productivity of mixtures, the species producing the highest biomass in monoculture changed over the years in most environments. Furthermore, transgressive overyielding was observed and was more prevalent in later years, in some environments. We conclude that choosing a single well-adapted species for maximizing productivity may not be the best alternative over the long term and that high levels of species diversity should be included in the design of productive and ecologically sound agricultural systems.

Keywords

monoculturepolyculturerichnessoveryieldingtransgressive overyieldinglegumegrass
Type
Research Papers
Information
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 317 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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