Summary Should the declining diversity of weed communities in conventionally managed arable fields be regarded as a problem? The answer to this question has tended to divide researchers into those whose primary focus is on conserving farmland biodiversity and those whose goals are dictated by weed control and maximising yield. Here, we argue that, regardless of how weeds are perceived, there are common ecological principles that should underpin any approach to managing weed communities, and, based on these principles, increasing in‐field weed diversity could be advantageous agronomically as well as environmentally. We hypothesise that a more diverse weed community will be less competitive, less prone to dominance by highly adapted, herbicide‐resistant species and that the diversity of the weed seedbank will be indicative of the overall sustainability of the cropping system. Common to these hypotheses is the idea that the intensification of agriculture has been accompanied by a homogenisation of cropping systems and landscapes, accounting for both declines in weed diversity and the reduced resilience of cropping systems (including the build‐up of herbicide resistance). As such, weed communities represent a useful indicator of the success of rediversifying systems at multiple scales, which will be a central component of making agriculture and weed control more sustainable.

中文翻译：

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杂草多样性有什么好处？


摘要 传统管理耕地中杂草群落多样性下降是否应该被视为一个问题？这个问题的答案往往将研究人员分为两类，一类的主要关注点是保护农田生物多样性，另一类的目标是杂草控制和产量最大化。在这里，我们认为，无论如何看待杂草，任何杂草群落管理方法都应遵循共同的生态原则，并且基于这些原则，增加田间杂草多样性可能对农艺和环境有利。我们假设，更加多样化的杂草群落的竞争性会降低，不太容易被高度适应的抗除草剂物种占据主导地位，并且杂草种子库的多样性将表明种植系统的整体可持续性。这些假设的共同点是，农业的集约化伴随着种植系统和景观的同质化，这既是杂草多样性下降的原因，也是种植系统恢复力下降的原因（包括除草剂抗性的增强）。因此，杂草群落是多尺度系统再多样化成功与否的有用指标，这将是使农业和杂草控制更加可持续的核心组成部分。