ArticleeLife2018
Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture.
Article in eLife, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Predators control pests and increase yield across crop types and climates: a meta-analysis.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Pooled it
- Beyond Beneficial Margins: Four Mechanisms Linking Border Vegetation to Pest Dynamics.Biology · 2026Review
- Indigenous Management Practices to Reduce Pests and Pathogens of Cash Crops in Agroforestry Systems.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Global evidence that plant diversity suppresses pests and promotes plant performance and crop production.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Comprehensive assessment of the acute lethal, risk level, and sub-lethal effects of four insecticides on Trichogramma ostriniae.PloS one · 2025Article
- Evidence-base for urban green-blue infrastructure to support insect diversity.Urban ecosystems · 2025Review
- Perennial Flowering Plants Sustain Natural Enemy Populations in Gobi Desert Oases of Southern Xinjiang, China.Insects · 2022Article
- Rice-crayfish systems are not a panacea for sustaining cleaner food production.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2021Article
- Global synthesis of effects of plant species diversity on trophic groups and interactions.Nature plants · 2020Article
- Plant domestication disrupts biodiversity effects across major crop types.Ecology letters · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
19 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Urban agriculture is making an increasing contribution to food security in large cities around the world. The potential contribution of biodiversity to ecological intensification in urban agricultural systems has not been investigated. We present monitoring data collected from rice fields in 34 community farms in mega-urban Shanghai, China, from 2001 to 2015, and show that the presence of a border crop of soybeans and neighboring crops (maize, eggplant and Chinese cabbage), both without weed control, increased invertebrate predator abundance, decreased the abundance of pests and dependence on insecticides, and increased grain yield and economic profits. Two 2 year randomized experiments with the low and high diversity practices in the same locations confirmed these results. Our study shows that diversifying farming practices can make an important contribution to ecological intensification and the sustainable use of associated ecosystem services in an urban ecosystem.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.