Agroforestry and Biodiversity

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Abstract

Declining biodiversity (BD) is aecting food security, agricultural sustainability,and environmental quality. Agroforestry (AF) is recognized as a possible partial solution forBD conservation and improvement. This manuscript uses published peer-reviewed manuscripts,reviews, meta-analysis, and federal and state agency documents to evaluate relationships betweenAF and BD and how AF can be used to conserve BD. The review revealed that floral, faunal, and soilmicrobial diversity were significantly greater in AF as compared to monocropping, adjacent croplands, and within crop alleys and some forests. Among the soil organisms, arbuscular mycorrhizaefungi (AMF), bacteria, and enzyme activities were significantly greater in AF than crop and livestockpractices. Agroforestry also creates spatially concentrated high-density BD near trees due to favorablesoil-plant-water-microclimate conditions. The greater BD was attributed to heterogeneous vegetation,organic carbon, microclimate, soil conditions, and spatial distribution of trees. Dierences in BDbetween AF and other management types diminished with time. Evenly distributed leaves, litter,roots, dead/live biological material, and microclimate improve soil and microclimate in adjacentcrop and pasture areas as the system matures. Results of the study prove that integration of AFcan improve BD in agricultural lands. Selection of site suitable tree/shrub/grass-crop combinationscan be used to help address soil nutrient deficiencies or environmental conditions. Future studieswith standardized management protocols may be needed for all regions to further strengthen thesefindings and to develop AF establishment criteria for BD conservation and agricultural sustainability.

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Land use has generally been considered a local environmental issue, but it is becoming a force of global importance. Worldwide changes to forests, farmlands, waterways, and air are being driven by the need to provide food, fiber, water, and shelter to more than six billion people. Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity. Such changes in land use have enabled humans to appropriate an increasing share of the planet's resources, but they also potentially undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain food production, maintain freshwater and forest resources, regulate climate and air quality, and ameliorate infectious diseases. We face the challenge of managing trade-offs between immediate human needs and maintaining the capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services in the long term.

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Simon Potts, Jacobus Biesmeijer, Claire Kremen … (2010)

Pollinators are a key component of global biodiversity, providing vital ecosystem services to crops and wild plants. There is clear evidence of recent declines in both wild and domesticated pollinators, and parallel declines in the plants that rely upon them. Here we describe the nature and extent of reported declines, and review the potential drivers of pollinator loss, including habitat loss and fragmentation, agrochemicals, pathogens, alien species, climate change and the interactions between them. Pollinator declines can result in loss of pollination services which have important negative ecological and economic impacts that could significantly affect the maintenance of wild plant diversity, wider ecosystem stability, crop production, food security and human welfare. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.