Historically, humans have managed food systems to maximize productivity. This pursuit has drastically modified terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems globally by reducing species diversity and body size while creating very productive, yet homogenized, environments. Such changes alter the structure and function of ecosystems in ways that ultimately erode their stability. This productivity–stability trade-off has largely been ignored in discussions around global food security. Here, we synthesize empirical and theoretical literature to demonstrate the existence of the productivity–stability trade-off and argue the need for its explicit incorporation in the sustainable management of food systems. We first explore the history of human management of food systems, its impacts on average body size within and across species and food web stability. We then demonstrate how reductions in body size are symptomatic of a broader biotic homogenization and rewiring of food webs. We show how this biotic homogenization decompartmentalizes interactions among energy channels and increases energy flux within the food web in ways that threaten their stability. We end by synthesizing large-scale ecological studies to demonstrate the prevalence of the productivity–stability trade-off. We conclude that management strategies promoting landscape heterogeneity and maintenance of key food web structures are critical to sustainable food production.

从历史上看，人类管理粮食系统是为了最大限度地提高生产力。这种追求通过减少物种多样性和体型，同时创造非常多产但同质化的环境，极大地改变了全球的陆地和水生生态系统。这些变化改变了生态系统的结构和功能，最终会侵蚀其稳定性。这种生产力与稳定性的权衡在围绕全球粮食安全的讨论中在很大程度上被忽视了。在这里，我们综合了实证和理论文献，以证明生产力-稳定性权衡的存在，并论证了将其明确纳入粮食系统可持续管理的必要性。我们首先探讨了人类管理食物系统的历史，它对物种内部和物种之间平均体型的影响以及食物网的稳定性。然后，我们展示了体型的减少如何是更广泛的生物同质化和食物网重新布线的症状。我们展示了这种生物均质化如何解除能量通道之间的相互作用，并以威胁其稳定性的方式增加食物网内的能量通量。最后，我们综合了大规模的生态学研究，以证明生产力-稳定性权衡的普遍性。我们得出的结论是，促进景观异质性和维护关键食物网结构的管理策略对于可持续粮食生产至关重要。