Cultural homegarden management practices mediate arthropod communities in Indonesia

Abstract

Tropical forest loss and transformation to agroecosystems have serious impacts on biodiversity, associated ecosystem services and the livelihood of local people. The high crop plant biodiversity and low intensity management in many homegardens could play an important role in the preservation of biodiversity in modified landscapes, as well as sustain food security of low income households. In this study, we focused on the role of the owner’s cultural background as migrants (from the island of Java) or non-migrants (local residents) for homegarden characteristics, such as size, management diversification, and crop species richness, and their effect on arthropod communities in Jambi province, Indonesia. Vane traps, pitfall traps and sweep netting were used to survey the arthropod communities, in particular bees and wasps, in 24 homegardens. Our results show that the native Jambi locals used a smaller number of management practices and had smaller homegardens than the Javanese transmigrants, whereas crop species richness did not differ. Management diversification and crop species richness were positively related to arthropod abundance as well as species richness of bees and wasps, presumably due to the enhanced homegarden heterogeneity. Our findings suggest that the cultural practices of migrant versus non-migrant land-use managers, which is usually neglected in agroecology, can be a major determinant of management practices shaping community structure and services of beneficial arthropods.