The stability of crop production: trade-offs in pollination-dependent agriculture

EAGESTAD INRA; Historically, demand for increased crop production has been satisfied by agricultural practices that include land conversion into agricultural land and improvements in crop yield. The benefits of persisting in this approach are challenged by the existence of apparent yield plateaus for many major crops and of crop yield saturating responses to increasing levels of pesticides. Notably, despite the importance of yield stability and the empirical evidence that magnitude and stability of ecosystem functions do not necessarily co-vary positively, few studies on the stability of crop yield have been attempted. Here, we develop a model for crop yield dynamics in a spatially heteroge…