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The productivity–stability trade-off in global food systems

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 8, pages 2135–2149 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Historically, humans have managed food systems to maximize productivity. This pursuit has drastically modified terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems globally by reducing species diversity and body size while creating very productive, yet homogenized, environments. Such changes alter the structure and function of ecosystems in ways that ultimately erode their stability. This productivity–stability trade-off has largely been ignored in discussions around global food security. Here, we synthesize empirical and theoretical literature to demonstrate the existence of the productivity–stability trade-off and argue the need for its explicit incorporation in the sustainable management of food systems. We first explore the history of human management of food systems, its impacts on average body size within and across species and food web stability. We then demonstrate how reductions in body size are symptomatic of a broader biotic homogenization and rewiring of food webs. We show how this biotic homogenization decompartmentalizes interactions among energy channels and increases energy flux within the food web in ways that threaten their stability. We end by synthesizing large-scale ecological studies to demonstrate the prevalence of the productivity–stability trade-off. We conclude that management strategies promoting landscape heterogeneity and maintenance of key food web structures are critical to sustainable food production.

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Fig. 1: Historic trends in terrestrial mammal and Atlantic cod body size.
Fig. 2: Pollen dynamics in relation to agricultural development in Europe.
Fig. 3: Food production-driven changes in ecosystem biostructure.
Fig. 4: Stability responses to food web structural changes.

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Data availability

Data to produce Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 3 are available online at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12702274 (ref. 172).

Code availability

Code for all pollen analysis is available online at https://github.com/mariegutgesell/Productivity_Stability.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by Food from Thought (grant no. 400079, awarded to K.M.), the Arrell Family Foundation (grant no. 299048, awarded to E.D.G.F.), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight grant (grant no. 430567, awarded to E.D.G.F.) and the Theme III Canada First Research Excellence Fund (grant no. 499201, awarded to E.D.G.F.). This work is a product from the Ecosystem Management in a Changing World workshop hosted by the Centre for Ecosystem Management. We would also like to thank T. Michael Keesey for the PhyloPic project and all those who contribute silhouettes to PhyloPic.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Marie Gutgesell, Kevin McCann.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

    Marie Gutgesell, Kevin McCann, Reilly O’Connor, Krishna KC, Evan D. G. Fraser, Charlotte Ward, Brett Pauli, Alexa Scott, William Gillam, Ze’ev Gedalof, Robert H. Hanner & Neil Rooney

  2. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    John C. Moore

  3. University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

    Bailey McMeans

  4. Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Ian Donohue

  5. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Carling Bieg

  6. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada

    Tyler Tunney

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Contributions

M.G., K.M., N.R., I.D., J.C.M., E.D.G.F., K.C., B.M, C.B., R.H.H., T.T., R.O. and C.W. contributed to the conceptualization of the study. M.G., K.M., R.O., W.G., Z.G. and N.R. contributed to the method design and pollen analysis. M.G., N.R., K.M., R.O., C.W., A.S. and B.P. contributed to literature investigation and analysis. M.G., R.O. and K.M. contributed to visualization and figures. K.M. and E.D.G.F. contributed funding acquisition. M.G. and K.M. led the final draft preparation and submission stages with comments from all authors being received before submissions.

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Correspondence to Marie Gutgesell.

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Competing interests

E.D.G.F. is the co-chair of the Canadian Food Policy Advisory Council, sits on scientific advisory boards of Genome Quebec and Protein Industry Canada and is the vice-chair of the Maple Leaf Centre on Food Security. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Gutgesell, M., McCann, K., O’Connor, R. et al. The productivity–stability trade-off in global food systems. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 2135–2149 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02529-y

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