Study finds ecosystem disservices significantly underrepresented in crop agriculture research
A new preprint study found that ecosystem disservices — harmful ecological effects in crop systems — are dramatically underrepresented in scientific literature compared to ecosystem services. Researchers built a predicted network of 103 plausible ecological links and found only 58 were documented in published research, with disservice links three times more likely to be absent. This gap may inflate perceived benefits of biological crop protection and distort management decisions.
Researchers publishing on bioRxiv constructed a predicted ecological network of 47 nodes and 103 links representing plausible relationships between ecosystem service providers — such as taxa and functional groups — and the services or disservices they deliver in annual crop agroecosystems. Comparing this to a realised network derived from systematic Scopus literature searches, they found a 29.8% decline in nodes and a 43.7% decline in links, with four of nine predicted disservice nodes entirely absent from the literature. Ecosystem service links were documented in 6.6 times more papers than ecosystem disservice links, and disservice links were three times more likely to be missing altogether. The study also found that projected networks — which map indirect connections between services and disservices through shared providers — were strongly reduced, obscuring important trade-offs and multifunctionality. The authors argue this pattern reflects a cognitive bias in the research community that can inflate the perceived benefits of ecological interventions, distort evaluations of key species and interactions, and generate unrealistic expectations for biological crop protection strategies.
What's missing
As a preprint, this study has not yet undergone peer review, and its conclusions should be treated with corresponding caution. The study does not quantify the extent to which publication bias versus genuine research gaps drives the underrepresentation, nor does it assess whether the missing disservice links have practical significance for crop yields or management outcomes.
What different sources said
- bioRxivCenter
Ecosystem disservices are underrepresented in literature on annual crop agroecosystems
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