Abstract
Biodiversity is known to be influenced by agricultural practices in many ways. However, it is necessary to understand how this relation takes place in particular agroecosystems, sociocultural contexts and for specific biological groups, especially in highly biodiverse places. Also, in order to systematically study and track how biodiversity responds or changes with agricultural practices, it is necessary to find groups that can be used as practical indicators. We conduct a study of beetle (Coleoptera) diversity in maize-based agricultural plots with heterogeneous management practices in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico, a region with outstanding biodiversity and a long agricultural history. We use a mixture of local knowledge and multivariate statistics to group the plots into two broad and contrasting management categories (traditional vs. industrialized). Then, we present an analysis of Coleopteran diversity for each category, showing higher levels across different diversity indexes for the traditional plots. Specifically, Coleopteran guilds associated with natural pest control and soil conservation are more common in traditional plots than in industrialized ones, while herbivorous beetles are more abundant in the second. Also, our results let us postulate the Curculionidae family as an indicator of both management type and overall Coleopteran diversity in the agricultural lands of the study site. We discuss our results in terms of the agricultural matrix quality and its role in strategies that favor the coexistence of culturally meaningful agricultural systems and local biodiversity.
Highlights
Agriculture is a diverse and dynamic process that involves a large variety of production practices
There is a strong positive correlation between practices associated with an industrialized management, such as use or industrial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, irrigation and monoculture
The variables with a negative correlation were all associated with an industrial model of agriculture (Perfecto et al, 2009): a monoculture scheme, irrigation and use of industrial inputs
Summary
Agriculture is a diverse and dynamic process that involves a large variety of production practices These practices are not assembled at random, but occur as sets of land management activities, “management types,” that are interdependent, adapted to each other and that function as a system with specific goals (Andow and Hidaka, 1989; Vandermeer, 2011). It has been suggested that some types of agricultural management can coexist and even favor biodiversity conservation if it allows for the temporary or permanent establishment of local species in agroecosystems (Perfecto et al, 2009; Fahrig et al, 2011; Kremen and Merenlender, 2018). It is a challenge to organize such heterogeneity into typologies that allow us to test the role of management, as well as of specific agricultural practices, on the maintenance of biodiversity and its associated ecosystem services (Álvarez et al, 2014). In order to overcome a simplistic view that conceives agriculture as an absolute antagonist to biodiversity, it is necessary to assess the effect of agricultural management in different contexts and case studies, and to identify, favor or adapt strategies that allow for its coexistence with biodiversity
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