Crop diversification is a strategic approach in agriculture that involves cultivating a range of different crops on a farm rather than relying solely on one type of crop. This practice offers numerous advantages, including reducing the risk of crop failure due to pests, diseases, or adverse weather conditions. By growing a variety of crops, farmers can also maintain soil health and fertility more effectively, as different crops have varying nutrient requirements and growth patterns. Moreover, crop diversification provides farmers with opportunities to tap into diverse markets, stabilize their income throughout the year, and contribute to environmental sustainability by promoting biodiversity and reducing reliance on chemical inputs. Overall, crop diversification is a key aspect of modern farming practices aimed at enhancing resilience, profitability, and ecological stewardship. Along with this, a resilient ecosystem is one that demonstrates the capacity to withstand and recover from disturbances while maintaining its essential functions and supporting biodiversity. These ecosystems possess several key characteristics that contribute to their resilience. Firstly, they have high levels of biodiversity, including a variety of species with different functions and niches. This diversity helps buffer against environmental changes and increases the likelihood that some species will thrive even under adverse conditions. Additionally, resilient ecosystems often exhibit strong ecological connectivity, allowing for the movement of species and genetic material across landscapes, which promotes adaptation and enhances overall resilience. They also tend to have robust feedback mechanisms and adaptive management strategies in place, enabling them to respond flexibly to disturbances and incorporate new information into their resilience strategies. Overall, resilient ecosystems play a crucial role in sustaining life on Earth by providing essential services such as clean air and water, climate regulation, and habitat for wildlife, while also supporting human well-being and livelihoods.

In this Topical Collection, we invite novel research and constrictive review works that share new insight results on the subject, as well as establish a positive discussion about the Crop Diversification for Resilient Ecosystem.

Major themes include:

- Ecosystem services for soil health management

- Biodiversity conservation for ecosystem resilience

- Sustainable soil health management through crop diversification

- Climate resilience farming for ecosystem management

- Reduced pesticide dependency through crop management

- Water quality management for enhancing nutrient use efficiency

- Crops nutritional dietary diversity

- Food security through crop management

- Economic stability through crop management

- Ecosystem services and crop risk management

- Crop diversification through building resilient ecosystems

- Water management through crop diversification

- Sustainable agriculture through

- Cultural Heritage and crops diversification

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to: SDG 2, SDG 15

Agriculture is pivotal to the European economy and global food supply, yet faces increasing challenges from climate change. Understanding the spatial and temporal variability of environmental factors (climate, soil, water) is crucial for managing agricultural landscapes and adapting to climate impacts. This involves comprehending plant acclimation mechanisms, leveraging functional traits as indicators, and applying technological innovations like sensors, remote sensing, predictive models, and advanced methods for nutrient cycles and soil health. Growing public awareness necessitates quantitative approaches linking agricultural practices to ecosystem services. Agroecological methods are being adopted to enhance biodiversity, soil health, water retention, and resilience.

This collection delves into: quantifying environmental factors; agricultural resilience and climate change adaptation/mitigation strategies; sustainable practices' impact on ecosystem services; and precision agriculture innovations for resource optimization and sustainability.

This Collection aims to gather a broad range of observational, theoretical, and experimental studies, spanning a range of scales (from cells to agro-ecosystems), also by a multidisciplinary approach (form morpho-functional traits to remote sensing). Original research and novel Methods papers are welcome as well as Reviews and Opinion articles, which may consolidate this topic and indicate future research priorities.

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to: SDG 13 & SDG 15

Keywords: Climate Change Adaptation; Agricultural Resilience and sustainability; Plant traits; Precision Agriculture; Ecosystem Services; Soil Health; Water Management; Crop Monitoring; Agroecology; Environmental Modeling