Maintaining the Resilience and Productivity of Co-culture Systems in the Face of Environmental Change

Co-culture systems can address food security issues by intensifying production of crops and animal protein without requiring additional land area. We show how a graph-theoretic optimization model based on ecological network analysis can determine resilient co-culture strategies by controlling the presence of key species. Results of simulations on a hybrid rice and crayfish production system indicate that comparable levels of productivity can be achieved with different ecological system structures.