Networking agroecology: integrating the diversity of agroecosystem interactions

Worldwide demand for food will increase dramatically in the future as global human
population grows. Increasing efficiency of crop production is unlikely to be sufficient
to meet the demand, presenting a long-term threat to humanity’s ‘well-being’. Knowledge
of the system-level behaviour of agroecosystems, however, remains surprisingly
limited, reflecting the agricultural focus on particular species. This is starting to change
towards an ecosystem and network-based approach, following the recent revolution in
thinking about resource use and sustainability in our other global food production
industry: commercial fisheries.
Agroecosystems appear to retain plasticity of ecological processes that might be
manipulated for productivity and sustainability. Network structure and dynamics have
substantial impacts on ecosystem performance, but evidence from agroecosystems lags
behind network theory. Here, we provide an introduction to network theory and application
in agroecosystems, identify network metrics for management and environmental
change, and, finally, we highlight gaps in our current knowledge and key research
themes. These themes include: is the structure of agroecological networks affected
by sampling; how do ecosystem services ‘emerge’ empirically from ecological organization,
function and network properties; how do spatial and temporal scale and resolution
influence system performance; and, can network agroecology be used to design
systems that maximize ecosystem services?