Abstract
Urban and peri-urban agricultural (UPA) production systems in West African countries do not only mitigate food and financial insecurity, they may also foster biodiversity of arthropods and partly compensate for structural losses of natural environments. However, management practices in UPA systems like irrigation may also contribute to disturbances in arthropod ecology. To fill knowledge gaps in the relationships between UPA management and arthropod populations, we compared arthropods species across different irrigation sources in Tamale. During a 72-h sampling period, 14,226 arthropods were caught with pitfall traps and pan traps from 36 fields. These specimens comprised 13 orders, 103 families, 264 genera, and 329 taxa (243 identified species, 86 unidentified species) and categorized into five feeding guilds (carnivores, decomposers, herbivores, omnivores, and pollinators). Species richness, species accumulation curves, and diversity functions (richness, evenness, and dispersion) were calculated to characterize the arthropod community. Non-metric multidimensional scaling was applied to examine structural similarity of arthropod communities among sites. To account for the effects of soil-related data, we furthermore applied a redundancy analysis. Arthropods grouped according to the irrigation water source, whereby the dipterans were most dominant under wastewater conditions. Here, particularly the eye gnat, Hippelates pusio, a disease-causing vector for humans, accounted for the dipterans. The occurrence of three alien ant species suggested community shifts through invasive species, while the occurrence of seven ant species (at least one ant species occurred under each water source) that form mutualistic relationships with aphids highlighted future risks of aphid pest outbreak. Future studies on these taxa should specifically target their ecological and economic effects and potential countermeasures.
Highlights
Agriculture practiced within and around human agglomerations known as urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) has been a source of food for humans for centuries [1]
We applied a quite rigorous reduction because we found only a few species that were heterogeneously distributed across the sampling locations but were still abundant
This study is the first attempt to characterize the composition and functional partitioning of arthropod species communities sampled in West African UPA systems, in which farmers’
Summary
Agriculture practiced within and around human agglomerations known as urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) has been a source of food for humans for centuries [1]. Africa is a region where one-fifth of the population experiences hunger [2], and in Sub-Saharan Africa, almost half of the people live below the poverty line [3] Under these conditions, UPA helps to mitigate hunger and poverty in the urban population and contributes to the resilience of African cities [4]. Since UPA systems are productive vegetative features, they may increase the arthropod biodiversity of urban landscapes and improve ecosystem services, ameliorate urban-heat-island, and serve as habitats for wildlife [5]. These typically small-scale land-use systems support urban biodiversity, their productivity, in turn, heavily depends on the biodiversity of diverse pollinating insects and pest regulating agents [6]. It is in this context that ecologists are interested in collecting field data to better understand the diversity of arthropod communities and how these are determined by agricultural intensification and other environmental conditions
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
