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SS 11 - Towards Integrated Models Incorporating the Biodiversity-Production Mutualism

Monday, August 12, 2019: 10:15 AM-11:30 AM
L005/009, Kentucky International Convention Center
Organizer:
Ralf Seppelt
Co-organizer:
Michael Beckmann
Speakers:
Thomas Hertel , Alfred Burian , Volker Grimm , Jiangxiao Qui , Rebecca Spake , Emily Poggenborg Martin , Claire Kremen and Matthew G.E. Mitchell
Regardless of various conservation efforts, the world experiences a continued loss of biodiversity, putting cultivated lands in focus for halting biodiversity loss. However, land management first and foremost aims at fulfilling human requirements of providing materials and food from crops or livestock. While global food security can be achieved by reducing harvest losses and food waste and through change of diets, the main narrative is still to further increase yields. This requires to increase land-use intensity with amplified negative effects on biodiversity. Biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, however, is of utmost importance for successful and stable yields through ecosystem functions. While this mutual dependency of biodiversity and agricultural production is undisputed, quantitative relationships or even integrated models incorporating this dependency are lacking. The knowledge needed to gain such a quantitative understanding of the biodiversity-production relationship under land use intensification is available but fragmented. Synthesis and new modelling approaches require a new conceptual framing and overcoming disciplinary boundaries.

In this special session we discuss how such an integrated modeling of the biodiversity–production mutualism could be designed and how it supports realistic assessments on the planets productivity through incorporating biodiversity. We will begin our session with a brief introduction on existing approaches to incorporate biodiversity–production mutualism in models, highlighting the existing shortcomings and conceptual problems.  We then invite conference attendees to an open discussion on potential ways towards truly integrated models.

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