Investigating the nexus between homogenization, connectivity and contagious risk in the Global production ecosystem

Much of the Earth’s ecosystems have been transformed into simplified production ecosystems that focus on a few harvestable species.

The purpose of this project is to explore how this ongoing homogenization (i.e. a narrowing of species commodity diversity) of production ecosystems and their growing connection to international markets converge, and how this may create conditions for risk to emerge and spread (contagious risk).

Using different diversity indices and Bray–Curtis distance, we will assess homogenization of produced biomass commodities that has occurred over the past 60-years in agriculture (crops and livestock), forestry and fishery (aquaculture), at national and global scales, using FAO data.

We will identify countries that display a particularly strong degree of homogenization (“hotspots”) within sectors, to get a spatial overview of which countries are currently at high risk of suffering production shocks, assuming homogenization equates low resilience.

Finally, we will assess potential transmission of risk through the lens of trade networks for all sectors, where international trade provides links between homogenization hotspots (nodes).

Although the current global model of biomass production may increase productivity in the short-term, it can breed vulnerability in the long run because limits of the biosphere satisfying human demands may be set by the potential consequences of emergent contagious risks, as opposed to hard upper limits to production per se.