ABSTRACT
Current agricultural intensification practices are the biggest threat to sustainable development and a major force behind the breaching of multiple planetary boundaries. The first decade of the 21st century has seen a renewed emphasis on human impact on the global environment, and raised important questions regarding our vulnerability in the face of exponential changes across a multitude of biophysical, economic, and social indicators. The term 'ecosystems' conjures images of natural systems: forests, wetlands, grasslands. However, in the strictest sense, the term simply refers to a community of organisms interacting with each other and with their environment such that energy is exchanged and system-level processes, such as the cycling of elements, emerge. Biodiversity is deceivingly simple as a term - yet it hides much complexity which can drive important assumptions and ultimately confusion. Species diversity represents the diversity of species in a defined unit of space or time. In agricultural systems, increasing species diversity refers to multi-species cropping systems.
