How can modern intensive agriculture utilize species diversity? Insights from the important agricultural heritage rice-fish system

Species coexistence is a fundamental paradigm for the survival of organisms in nature. Throughout the long development of agriculture, humans have utilized the wisdom of species coexistence to establish agricultural systems that leverage biodiversity, such as intercropping, rice-fish coculture, and agroforestry systems. The rice-fish coculture system, which involves cultivating cyprinid fish in the shallow-water environments of paddy fields, has a long history and is widely distributed in southern China. It has been designated as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or a China-Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (China-NIAHS) by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China. In this paper, we first briefly describe the ecosystem functioning and ecological mechanisms underlying the sustainability of the rice-fish coculture. Then, we discuss how to design and manage modern eco-intensive agricultural systems based on the effects of species coexistence in the context of modern intensive agriculture. On one hand, from the perspective of functional trait compatibility between the two species, there is a need to breed varieties suited for coexistence and capable of generating “cooperative effects”. Therefore, a large-scale artificial intelligence model dedicated to species coexistence mechanisms is required to support biodiversity utilization. On the other hand, research should focus on developing key technologies for synergistic cocultures or mixtures based on artificial intelligence.