Selection of Non-Crop Plant Mixes Informed by Arthropod-Plant Network Analyses for Multiple Ecosystem Services Delivery Towards Ecological Intensification of Agriculture

Supratim Laha,Soumik Chatterjee,Parthiba Basu,Barbara Smith,Amlan Das

doi:10.3390/su14031903

Supratim Laha, Soumik Chatterjee + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031903

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Feb 7, 2022
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Calcutta, Coventry University

Abstract

Ecological intensification (EI) of agriculture through the improvement of ecosystem service delivery has recently emerged as the alternative to the conventional intensification of agriculture that is widely considered unsustainable and has negative impacts on the environment. Although tropical agricultural landscapes are still heterogeneous, they are rapidly losing diversity due to agricultural intensification. Restoration of natural or semi-natural habitats, habitat diversity, and provision of multiple benefits have been identified as important targets for the transition to EI. Choosing the right plant mixes for the restoration of habitats that can offer multiple ecosystem service benefits is therefore crucial. The selection of candidate species for plant mixes is generally informed by studies focusing on a specific ecosystem service (e.g., pollination) and not based on the whole arthropod—non-crop plant interactions matrix. In this study, we try to identify non-crop plant mixes that would provide habitat for pollinators, act as refugia for natural pest predators, and also as a trap crop for potential crop pests by studying non-crop plants—arthropod interaction network. We have identified the non-crop plant species mixes by first identifying the connector species based on their centrality in the network and then by studying how their sequential exclusions affect the stability of the network.

Highlights

IntroductionAgricultural intensification has emerged as one of the largest drivers of global biodiversity loss and threatens 86% of species facing extinction [3]
High external input (HEI) driven intensification of agriculture or the “GreenRevolution agriculture” has been able to address the growing global demand for food by improving productivity, the unsustainability of this production system is well established [1,2]
The study area was located within semi-natural habitats surrounding an agricultural landscape in the district of Balasore in an eastern Indian state of Odisha

Summary

Introduction

Agricultural intensification has emerged as one of the largest drivers of global biodiversity loss and threatens 86% of species facing extinction [3]. This massive loss of biodiversity led to a degeneration of critical ecosystem services that underpin the agroecosystems [4,5]. EI minimises negative environmental impacts on the agroecosystem while matching the yield levels of conventional intensive farms by integrating and improving the ecosystem service delivery through the restoration of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes that was conventionally intensified before [6,9]

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