DCrops4OneHealth

Biodiversity in fields and landscapes can be promoted by expanding crop production systems, reducing the use of agrochemicals, and increasing landscape complexity. These measures also have the potential to have a positive impact on human health.

In order to identify causal relationships between agrobiodiversity and health, derive recommendations, and implement measures in practice, the DCropS4OneHealth project tests the following hypotheses along a causal chain:

(1) Diversification of crop production systems increases biodiversity in the agricultural landscape in terms of soil and plant microbiome, vegetation, and invertebrate fauna.

(2) The higher diversity of crops, soil and plant microbiome, vegetation, and invertebrate fauna has a positive influence on the health-relevant properties of the food produced in terms of the food microbiome and plant constituents.

(3) These improved properties promote human health.

WithinDCrops our researchers focus on vegetation ecology and entomology.