ABSTRACT

It has been widely argued that agroecological science, which originally developed as the application of ecological principles to agricultural systems, should engage with the social and political issues that affect production agriculture, and incorporate knowledge from a variety of sources. In this paper, we use techniques from network science and bibliometrics to evaluate the degree to which this transformation has taken place. By creating networks based on over 3,000 agroecology papers and the roughly 160,000 references they cite, we distinguish the sub-fields (“research fronts”) that made up agroecology in three time intervals: 1982–2004, 2005–2013, and 2014–2018. We also identify the main disciplines from which the research fronts in 2014–2018 drew their supporting knowledge. We suggest that, very broadly, themes in agroecological research include: Ecosystem services; (agro)biodiversity; approaches to agricultural intensification; tropical agroecosystems (particularly coffee); pest and weed management; organic agriculture; cropping systems; system transitions, modeling, and design; climate change adaptation; food sovereignty; education; and the nature and purpose of agroecology itself. Some research fronts mainly cite papers in natural science fields such as ecology, environmental science, agriculture, and entomology. However, others draw upon work in social science areas including development studies, environmental studies, and anthropology. The analysis presented in this paper demonstrates that agroecology has indeed evolved to possess many of the characteristics of an “ecology of [the entire] food system.” We anticipate that this work will also be of use to those wishing to gain an overview of the field or identify key papers, knowledge gaps, and potential collaborations.

抽象的

人们普遍认为，农业生态科学最初是作为将生态学原理应用于农业系统而发展的，应该参与影响生产农业的社会和政治问题，并吸收各种来源的知识。在本文中，我们使用来自网络科学和文献计量学的技术来评估这种转变发生的程度。通过基于3,000多种农业生态论文及其引用的大约160,000引用创建网络，我们区分了三个时间间隔内构成农业生态的子领域（“研究前沿”）：1982–2004、2005–2013和2014–2018 。我们还确定了2014-2018年研究前沿从中汲取支持知识的主要学科。我们建议，从广义上讲，农业生态研究的主题包括：生态系统服务；（农业）生物多样性；农业集约化的方法；热带农业生态系统（尤其是咖啡）；病虫害和杂草管理；有机农业；种植系统；系统转换，建模和设计；气候变化适应；粮食主权；教育; 以及农业生态本身的性质和目的。一些研究前沿主要引用自然科学领域的论文，例如生态学，环境科学，农业和昆虫学。但是，其他人则利用社会科学领域的工作，包括发展研究，环境研究和人类学。本文提供的分析表明，农业生态确实已经发展为具有“ [整个]食物系统生态”的许多特征。