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Agricultural simplification continues to expand at the expense of more diverse forms of agriculture. This simplification, for example, in the form of intensively managed monocultures, poses a risk to keeping the world within safe and just Earth system boundaries. Here, we estimated how agricultural diversification simultaneously affects social and environmental outcomes. Drawing from 24 studies in 11 countries across 2655 farms, we show how five diversification strategies focusing on livestock, crops, soils, noncrop plantings, and water conservation benefit social (e.g., human well-being, yields, and food security) and environmental (e.g., biodiversity, ecosystem services, and reduced environmental externalities) outcomes. We found that applying multiple diversification strategies creates more positive outcomes than individual management strategies alone. To realize these benefits, well-designed policies are needed to incentivize the adoption of multiple diversification strategies in unison. 

Abstract Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems and processes that underpin human wellbeing is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we define critical natural assets as the natural and semi-natural ecosystems that provide 90% of the total current magnitude of 14 types of nature’s contributions to people (NCP), and we map the global locations of these critical natural assets at 2 km resolution. Critical natural assets for maintaining local-scale NCP (12 of the 14 NCP) account for 30% of total global land area and 24% of national territorial waters, while 44% of land area is required to also maintain two global-scale NCP (carbon storage and moisture recycling). These areas overlap substantially with cultural diversity (areas containing 96% of global languages) and biodiversity (covering area requirements for 73% of birds and 66% of mammals). At least 87% of the world’s population live in the areas benefitting from critical natural assets for local-scale NCP, while only 16% live on the lands containing these assets. Many of the NCP mapped here are left out of international agreements focused on conserving species or mitigating climate change, yet this analysis shows that explicitly prioritizing critical natural assets and the NCP they provide could simultaneously advance development, climate and conservation goals. 

Abstract Recent foodborne illness outbreaks have heightened pressures on growers to deter wildlife from farms, jeopardizing conservation efforts. However, it remains unclear which species, particularly birds, pose the greatest risk to food safety. Using >11,000 pathogen tests and 1565 bird surveys covering 139 bird species from across the western United States, we examined the importance of 11 traits in mediating wild bird risk to food safety. We tested whether traits associated with pathogen exposure (e.g., habitat associations, movement, and foraging strategy) and pace‐of‐life (clutch size and generation length) mediated foodborne pathogen prevalence and proclivities to enter farm fields and defecate on crops.Campylobacterspp. were the most prevalent enteric pathogen (8.0%), whileSalmonellaand Shiga‐toxin producingEscherichia coli(STEC) were rare (0.46% and 0.22% prevalence, respectively). We found that several traits related to pathogen exposure predicted pathogen prevalence. Specifically,Campylobacterand STEC‐associated virulence genes were more often detected in species associated with cattle feedlots and bird feeders, respectively.Campylobacterwas also more prevalent in species that consumed plants and had longer generation lengths. We found that species associated with feedlots were more likely to enter fields and defecate on crops. Our results indicated that canopy‐foraging insectivores were less likely to deposit foodborne pathogens on crops, suggesting growers may be able to promote pest‐eating birds and birds of conservation concern (e.g., via nest boxes) without necessarily compromising food safety. As such, promoting insectivorous birds may represent a win‐win‐win for bird conservation, crop production, and food safety. Collectively, our results suggest that separating crop production from livestock farming may be the best way to lower food safety risks from birds. More broadly, our trait‐based framework suggests a path forward for co‐managing wildlife conservation and food safety risks in farmlands by providing a strategy for holistically evaluating the food safety risks of wild animals, including under‐studied species. 

Human land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield–related ecosystem services can be maintained by a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; biological pest control; and final yields in the context of ongoing land-use change. Pollinator and enemy richness directly supported ecosystem services in addition to and independent of abundance and dominance. Up to 50% of the negative effects of landscape simplification on ecosystem services was due to richness losses of service-providing organisms, with negative consequences for crop yields. Maintaining the biodiversity of ecosystem service providers is therefore vital to sustain the flow of key agroecosystem benefits to society.