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Maintaining the productivity of co-culture systems in the face of environmental change

Nature Sustainability volume 5, pages 749–752 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Co-culture systems can address food security issues by sustainably intensifying production of crops and animal protein without requiring additional land area. We show how a graph-theoretic optimization model based on ecological network analysis can determine robust co-culture strategies by controlling the presence of key species. Results of simulations on a hybrid rice and crayfish production system indicate that comparable levels of productivity can be achieved with different ecological network structures.

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Fig. 1: Optimal rice–crayfish co-culture system.
Fig. 2: Number of species and crayfish productivity of alternative ecosystem structures.

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Data availability

Data used in the analysis can be obtained via https://github.com/EcologicalP-Graph/Optimal-rice-crayfish-co-culture-system-/find/main.

Code availability

The software P-graph Studio (v.5.2.2.2) is hosted by the Department of Computer Science and Systems Technology at the University of Pannonia in Hungary21. It is available free of charge for research purposes via www.p-graph.org. The current v.5.2.2.2 runs in Microsoft Windows. The following specifications are required: Microsoft.NET Framework 4.5.1 (x86 and x64) and Windows Installer 4.5. Interested readers can replicate or modify our results using the P-graph Studio model file accessible via https://github.com/EcologicalP-Graph/Optimal-rice-crayfish-co-culture-system-/find/main.

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Acknowledgements

The research contributions from H.C. were done under the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH), NKFIH Identifier: 135854.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

    Angelyn R. Lao

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

    Kathleen B. Aviso & Raymond R. Tan

  3. Research Institute of Applied Earth Sciences, University of Miskolc, Miskolc, Hungary

    Heriberto Cabezas

Authors
  1. Angelyn R. Lao
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  2. Kathleen B. Aviso
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  3. Heriberto Cabezas
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  4. Raymond R. Tan
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Contributions

H. C. and R.R.T. conceived the study. K.B.A. developed the model. A.R.L. created the graphics. All authors analysed the data, wrote the article and did the revisions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kathleen B. Aviso.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Igor Linkov, Shweta Singh and David Styles for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

The Supplementary Information contains complete information on the 60 different ecosystem structures that were studied in this work, including Tables 1–15 and Figs. 1–12.

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Lao, A.R., Aviso, K.B., Cabezas, H. et al. Maintaining the productivity of co-culture systems in the face of environmental change. Nat Sustain 5, 749–752 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00912-w

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