Sustainable strategies for managing weeds are critical to meeting agriculture’s potential to feed the world’s population while conserving the ecosystems and biodiversity on which we depend. The dominant paradigm of weed management in developed countries is currently founded on the two principal tools of herbicides and tillage to remove weeds. However, evidence of negative environmental impacts from both tools is growing, and herbicide resistance is increasingly prevalent. These challenges emerge from a lack of attention to how weeds interact with and are regulated by the agroecosystem as a whole. Novel technological tools proposed for weed control, such as new herbicides, gene editing, and seed destructors, do not address these systemic challenges and thus are unlikely to provide truly sustainable solutions. Combining multiple tools and techniques in an Integrated Weed Management strategy is a step forward, but many integrated strategies still remain overly reliant on too few tools. In contrast, advances in weed ecology are revealing a wealth of options to manage weeds at the agroecosystem level that, rather than aiming to eradicate weeds, act to regulate populations to limit their negative impacts while conserving diversity. Here, we review the current state of knowledge in weed ecology and identify how this can be translated into practical weed management. The major points are the following: (1) the diversity and type of crops, management actions and limiting resources can be manipulated to limit weed competitiveness while promoting weed diversity; (2) in contrast to technological tools, ecological approaches to weed management tend to be synergistic with other agroecosystem functions; and (3) there are many existing practices compatible with this approach that could be integrated into current systems, alongside new options to explore. Overall, this review demonstrates that integrating systems-level ecological thinking into agronomic decision-making offers the best route to achieving sustainable weed management.

中文翻译：

---

杂草科学在生态上的未来可以维持作物的生产和环境。回顾

杂草的可持续管理战略对于满足农业养活世界人口的潜力，同时保护我们赖以生存的生态系统和生物多样性至关重要。目前，发达国家杂草治理的主要范例是基于除草剂和耕作以去除杂草的两种主要工具。但是，越来越多的证据表明这两种工具都对环境产生了负面影响，并且对除草剂的抗药性越来越普遍。这些挑战源于对杂草如何与整个农业生态系统相互作用并受到其调控的关注。为控制杂草而提出的新技术工具，例如新型除草剂，基因编辑和种子破坏剂，不能解决这些系统性挑战，因此不可能提供真正的可持续解决方案。在杂草综合治理策略中结合多种工具和技术是向前迈出的一步，但是许多综合策略仍然过分依赖于很少的工具。相反，杂草生态学的进步揭示了多种杂草治理选择在农业生态系统一级这不是在消灭杂草，而是为了规范种群，以限制其负面影响，同时保护多样性。在这里，我们回顾了杂草生态学的当前知识状态，并确定了如何将其转化为实用的杂草管理。要点如下：（1）可以操纵作物的多样性和种类，管理措施和限制资源，以限制杂草的竞争力，同时促进杂草的多样性；（2）与技术工具相比，生态管理杂草的方法往往与其他农业生态系统功能具有协同作用；（3）与该方法兼容的许多现有实践可以与当前系统集成，同时可以探索新的选择。总体，