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Enhanced agricultural sustainability through within-species diversification

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Abstract

Agriculture has played an important role in human health and welfare by producing large amounts of food to feed a growing world population, but this has also placed substantial pressures on natural resources and the environment. One of the most pressing challenges in agriculture is how to ensure food security and promote long-term social-economic development while maintaining healthy, sustainable ecosystems capable of quickly adapting to changing environments. Previous studies demonstrated the positive impact of mixed planting strategies on crop productivity as a consequence of reduced disease impact. Here we present data from a series of trials involving within-species diversification of potatoes grown under smallholding conditions, showing that the benefits of mixed planting strategies extend beyond increases in yield, production resilience and reductions in disease, to increased soil microbial diversity, improved soil nutrients and reduced evolution in the associated Phytophthora infestans pathogen. Taken together, these synergistic benefits provide a good opportunity for achieving sustainable agriculture.

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Fig. 1: Impacts of host diversity on crop yields.
Fig. 2: Impact of host diversity on disease epidemics.
Fig. 3: Impact of host diversity on different measurements of soil fertility.
Fig. 4: Impact of host diversity on pathogen evolution and aggressiveness.
Fig. 5: Impact of host diversity on pathogen diversity.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant Nos. U1405213, 31761143010 and 31460368) and the China Agriculture Research System (No. CARS-09-P20).

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Authors

Contributions

L.N.Y. collected and genotyped pathogen isolates, generated sequence and pathogenicity data, analysed data and wrote the manuscript. Z.C.P. conducted field experiments, generated soil nutrition and microbial data and wrote the manuscript. W.Z and E.J.W. collected pathogen isolates, generated sequence and pathogenicity data and wrote the manuscript. D.C.H., X.Y., Y.Y.Q. and Y.W. conducted field experiments, collected pathogen isolates and pathogenicity data. R.S.C., L.P.S., P.H.T. and J.J.B. wrote the manuscript. Q.J.S. conceived and supervised the experiments. J.Z. conceived, designed and supervised the experiments, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qi-Jun Sui or Jiasui Zhan.

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Yang, LN., Pan, ZC., Zhu, W. et al. Enhanced agricultural sustainability through within-species diversification. Nat Sustain 2, 46–52 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0201-2

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