Balancing competition for resources with multiple pest regulation in diversified agroecosystems: a process‐based approach to reconcile diversification and productivity
نویسندگان
چکیده
Agroecosystem plant diversification can enhance pest biological regulation and is a promising alternative to pesticide application. However, the costs of competition for resources between plants may exceed the benefits gained by pest regulation. To disentangle the interactions between pest regulation and competition, we developed a generic process-based approach that accounts for the effects of an associated plant and leaf and root pests on biomass production. We considered three crop-plant associations that differ in competition profiles, and we simulated biomass production under wide ranges of both pest regulation rates and resources' availability. We analyzed outputs to quantify the pest regulation service level that would be required to attain monoculture yield and other production goals. Results showed that pest regulation requirements were highly dependent on the profile of resource interception of the associated plant and on resources' availability. Pest regulation and the magnitude of competition between plants interacted in determining the balance between nitrogen and radiation uptake by the crop. Our findings suggest that productivity of diversified agroecosystems relative to monoculture should be optimized by assembling plants whose characteristics balance crops' resource acquisition. The theoretical insights from our study draw generic rules for vegetation assemblage to optimize trade-offs between pest regulation and production. Our findings and approach may have implications in understanding, theorizing and implementing agroecosystem diversification. By its generic and adaptable structure, our approach should be useful for studying the effects of diversification in many agroecosystems.
منابع مشابه
Corporate diversification’s effects on Efficiency and productivity: case study of Manufacturing firms listed in Bursa Malaysia
Abstract In the past few years, diversification has turned into a highly controversial issue amongst numerous managers in almost each and every business. It is contended by many that diversification is vitally important and highly effective especially when it comes to evaluating the financial performance. There are several studies about the relationship between diversification and financial per...
متن کاملارائه الگوریتم پویا برای تنظیم همروندی فرایندهای کسبوکار
Business process management systems (BPMS) are vital complex information systems to compete in the global market and to increase economic productivity. Workload balancing of resources in BPMS is one of the challenges have been long studied by researchers. Workload balancing of resources increases the system stability, improves the efficiency of the resources and enhances the quality of their pr...
متن کاملStability lies in flowers: Plant diversification mediating shifts in arthropod food webs
Arthropod community composition in agricultural landscapes is dependent on habitat characteristics, such as plant composition, landscape homogeneity and the presence of key resources, which are usually absent in monocultures. Manipulating agroecosystems through the insertion of in-field floral resources is a useful technique to reduce the deleterious effects of habitat simplification. Food web ...
متن کاملA New Balancing and Ranking Method based on Hesitant Fuzzy Sets for Solving Decision-making Problems under Uncertainty
The purpose of this paper is to extend a new balancing and ranking method to handle uncertainty for a multiple attribute analysis under a hesitant fuzzy environment. The presented hesitant fuzzy balancing and ranking (HF-BR) method does not require attributes’ weights through the process of multiple attribute decision making (MADM) under hesitant conditions. For the rating of possible alternati...
متن کاملA cost-oriented model for multi-manned assembly line balancing problem
In many real world assembly line systems which the work-piece is of large size more than one worker work on the same work-piece in each station. This type of assembly line is called multi-manned assembly line (MAL). In the classical multi-manned assembly line balancing problem (MALBP) the objective is to minimize the manpower needed to manufacture one product unit. Apart from the manpower, othe...
متن کامل