Land-use transitions can enhance the livelihoods of smallholder farmers but potential economic-ecological trade-offs remain poorly understood. Here, we present an interdisciplinary study of the ...environmental, social and economic consequences of land-use transitions in a tropical smallholder landscape on Sumatra, Indonesia. We find widespread biodiversity-profit trade-offs resulting from land-use transitions from forest and agroforestry systems to rubber and oil palm monocultures, for 26,894 aboveground and belowground species and whole-ecosystem multidiversity. Despite variation between ecosystem functions, profit gains come at the expense of ecosystem multifunctionality, indicating far-reaching ecosystem deterioration. We identify landscape compositions that can mitigate trade-offs under optimal land-use allocation but also show that intensive monocultures always lead to higher profits. These findings suggest that, to reduce losses in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, changes in economic incentive structures through well-designed policies are urgently needed.
Ecological intensification, or the improvement of crop yield through enhancement of biodiversity, may be a sustainable pathway toward greater food supplies. Such sustainable increases may be ...especially important for the 2 billion people reliant on small farms, many of which are undernourished, yet we know little about the efficacy of this approach. Using a coordinated protocol across regions and crops, we quantify to what degree enhancing pollinator density and richness can improve yields on 344 fields from 33 pollinator-dependent crop systems in small and large farms from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For fields less than 2 hectares, we found that yield gaps could be closed by a median of 24% through higher flower-visitor density. For larger fields, such benefits only occurred at high flower-visitor richness. Worldwide, our study demonstrates that ecological intensification can create synchronous biodiversity and yield outcomes.
1. Agricultural intensification reduces ecological resilience of land-use systems, whereas paradoxically, environmental change and climate extremes require a higher response capacity than ever. ...Adaptation strategies to environmental change include maintenance of shade trees in tropical agroforestry, but conversion of shaded to unshaded systems is common practice to increase short-term yield. 2. In this paper, we review the short-term and long-term ecological benefits of shade trees in coffee Coffea arabica, C. canephora and cacao Theobroma cacao agroforestry and emphasize the poorly understood, multifunctional role of shade trees for farmers and conservation alike. 3. Both coffee and cacao are tropical understorey plants. Shade trees in agroforestry enhance functional biodiversity, carbon sequestration, soil fertility, drought resistance as well as weed and biological pest control. However, shade is needed for young cacao trees only and is less important in older cacao plantations. This changing response to shade regime with cacao plantation age often results in a transient role for shade and associated biodiversity in agroforestry. 4. Abandonment of old, unshaded cacao in favour of planting young cacao in new, thinned forest sites can be named 'short-term cacao boom-and-bust cycle', which counteracts tropical forest conservation. In a 'long-term cacao boom-and-bust cycle', cacao boom can be followed by cacao bust due to unmanageable pest and pathogen levels (e.g. in Brazil and Malaysia). Higher pest densities can result from physiological stress in unshaded cacao and from the larger cacao area planted. Risk-averse farmers avoid long-term vulnerability of their agroforestry systems by keeping shade as an insurance against insect pest outbreaks, whereas yield-maximizing farmers reduce shade and aim at short-term monetary benefits. 5. Synthesis and applications. Sustainable agroforestry management needs to conserve or create a diverse layer of multi-purpose shade trees that can be pruned rather than removed when crops mature. Incentives from payment-for-ecosystem services and certification schemes encourage farmers to keep high to medium shade tree cover. Reducing pesticide spraying protects functional agrobiodiversity such as antagonists of pests and diseases, pollinating midges determining cacao yields and pollinating bees enhancing coffee yield. In a landscape perspective, natural forest along-side agroforestry allows noncrop-crop spillover of a diversity of functionally important organisms. Knowledge transfer between farmers, agronomists and ecologists in a participatory approach helps to encourage a shade management regime that balances economic and ecological needs and provides a 'diversified food-and-cash crop' livelihood strategy.
Understanding host-parasitoid food webs, as well as the factors affecting species interactions, is important for developing pest management strategies in an agroecosystem. This research aimed to ...study how the long-term change in oil palm plantations, specifically the tree age, affect the structure of host-parasitoid food webs. The field research was conducted on an oil palm plantation located in Central Kalimantan and Jambi Province, Indonesia. In Central Kalimantan, we conducted observations of lepidopteran larvae and parasitoid wasps at different tree ages, ranging from 3 to 18 years old. For tree ages from 3 to 10 years, observations of host-parasitoid food webs were conducted by collecting the lepidopteran larvae using a hand-collection method in each oil palm tree within a hundred trees and they were later reared in the laboratory for observing the emerging parasitoids. The fogging method was applied for trees aged 12 to 18 years because the tree height was too high, and hand-collection was difficult to perform. To compare host-parasitoid food webs between different regions, we also conducted a hand-collection method in Jambi, but only for trees aged 3 years old. The food-web structure that was analyzed included the species number of lepidopteran larvae and parasitoid wasps, linkage density, and interaction diversity. We found 32 species of lepidopteran pests and 16 species of associated parasitoids in Central Kalimantan and 12 species of lepidopteran pests, and 11 species of parasitoids in Jambi. Based on the GLM analysis, tree age had a negative relationship with the species number of lepidopteran larvae and parasitoids as well as linkage density and interaction diversity. Different geographical regions showed different host-parasitoid food web structures, especially the species number of lepidopteran larvae and interaction diversity, which were higher in Central Kalimantan than in Jambi. However, some parasitoids can be found across different tree ages. For example, Fornicia sp (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) was recorded in all ages of oil palm sampled. Results of the GLM analysis showed that the abundance of Fornicia sp and its host (lepidopteran larvae abundance) were not affected by the tree age of the oil palm. In conclusion, the long-term change in oil palm plantations simplifies the structure of host-parasitoid food webs. This highlights the importance of long-term studies across geographical regions for a better understanding of the consequences that wide monoculture oil palm plantations have on biological control services.
Smallholder-dominated agricultural mosaic landscapes are highlighted as model production systems that deliver both economic and ecological goods in tropical agricultural landscapes, but trade-offs ...underlying current land-use dynamics are poorly known. Here, using the most comprehensive quantification of land-use change and associated bundles of ecosystem functions, services and economic benefits to date, we show that Indonesian smallholders predominantly choose farm portfolios with high economic productivity but low ecological value. The more profitable oil palm and rubber monocultures replace forests and agroforests critical for maintaining above- and below-ground ecological functions and the diversity of most taxa. Between the monocultures, the higher economic performance of oil palm over rubber comes with the reliance on fertilizer inputs and with increased nutrient leaching losses. Strategies to achieve an ecological-economic balance and a sustainable management of tropical smallholder landscapes must be prioritized to avoid further environmental degradation.
Pollinator decline has attracted global attention and substantial efforts are underway to respond through national pollinator strategies and action plans. These policy responses require clarity on ...what is driving pollinator decline and what risks it generates for society in different parts of the world. Using a formal expert elicitation process, we evaluated the relative regional and global importance of eight drivers of pollinator decline and ten consequent risks to human well-being. Our results indicate that global policy responses should focus on reducing pressure from changes in land cover and configuration, land management and pesticides, as these were considered very important drivers in most regions. We quantify how the importance of drivers and risks from pollinator decline, differ among regions. For example, losing access to managed pollinators was considered a serious risk only for people in North America, whereas yield instability in pollinator-dependent crops was classed as a serious or high risk in four regions but only a moderate risk in Europe and North America. Overall, perceived risks were substantially higher in the Global South. Despite extensive research on pollinator decline, our analysis reveals considerable scientific uncertainty about what this means for human society.
Non target impact of classical biological control of exotic species in the ecosystem. Classical biological control has been hailed as a successful control method of many exotic species of pests. ...However, recently this method of control has been questioned due to several cases of non target impact. Non target impact can occur two ways, i.e. direct non target impact when there is a host shift of the bioagents (e.g. changes in preferences), and the indirect non target impact which can occur through, among others, food web subsides that will change the overall interactions of many species within an ecosystem. The aim of this paper is to understand the interactions between introduced exotic agents (e.g. insects) toward local diversity, e.g. what are the implications of the interactions toward local biodiversity? Are there non target and indirect impacts of these introductions in Indonesia? The discussions covers the concept of biological control and conservation issues that should be taken into consideration, particularly in the context of insect conservation and impacts of classical biological control on island diversity.
Local and landscape-scale agricultural intensification is a major driver of global biodiversity loss. Controversially discussed solutions include wildlife-friendly farming or combining high-intensity ...farming with land-sparing for nature. Here, we integrate biodiversity and crop productivity data for smallholder cacao in Indonesia to exemplify for tropical agroforests that there is little relationship between yield and biodiversity under current management, opening substantial opportunities for wildlife-friendly management. Species richness of trees, fungi, invertebrates, and vertebrates did not decrease with yield. Moderate shade, adequate labor, and input level can be combined with a complex habitat structure to provide high biodiversity as well as high yields. Although livelihood impacts are held up as a major obstacle for wildlife-friendly farming in the tropics, our results suggest that in some situations, agroforests can be designed to optimize both biodiversity and crop production benefits without adding pressure to convert natural habitat to farmland.
is a worldwide invasive pest that has caused significant economic damage. According to the classical biological control approach, natural enemies that can control invasive pests come from the same ...area of origin as the pests that have experienced coadaptation processes. However, the new association's approach suggests that local natural enemies are equally capable of controlling invasive pests. Due to the lack of data on the association of
and local natural enemies, research was conducted through a rapid survey to study the diversity of parasitoids associated with
. The results showed 15 parasitoid species associated with
. Four egg parasitoids, eight larval parasitoids, and three larval-pupal parasitoids were found to be associated with
for three years after it was first discovered in Indonesia. Eleven of them are new reports of parasitoids associated with
in Indonesia. A new association was found between
and twelve parasitoid species, consisting of three egg parasitoids (Platygasteridaesp.01, Platygasteridaesp.02, and
), six larval parasitoids (
sp.,
sp.,
sp.,
sp.,
sp., and
sp.), and three larval-pupal parasitoids (
,
, and
sp.).
remus is the most dominant parasitoid, with a higher abundance and parasitism rate. The result suggests another method for selecting biological control using the new association approach since local natural enemies can foster quick adaptation to invasive pests.
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