Abstract
Spatial and Seasonal Diversity of Wild Food Plants in Home Gardens of Northeast ThailandWild food plants (WFPs) are major components of tropical home gardens, constituting an important resource for poor farmers. The spatial and seasonal diversity of WFPs was analyzed across multi-species spatial configurations occurring within home gardens in a rice farming village in northeast Thailand. Data were collected in 77 sampling sites corresponding to five different home garden spatial configurations, namely fenced plot, fenced plot margin, yard, home garden boundary, and pot. Absolute abundance and frequency of occurrence were quantified per individual WFP species in both dry and rainy seasons, and data on additional uses (besides food) were collected through focus group discussions for each WFP species. A total of 20 species corresponding to 13 botanical families were reported. Results show that species abundance and frequency of occurrence varied seasonally and spatially within home gardens. Diversity, as observed in the analysis of Shannon and Simpson diversity indexes, also differed seasonally and across different spatial configurations. Home gardens showed higher diversity in the dry season because of the presence of human management. Ninety-five percent of the WFP species presented additional uses, with nine different types of uses in total. Finally, as this study demonstrates, the results on both the spatial and seasonal diversity of WFPs over different spatial configurations comprise a new perspective in home garden research by providing new understandings about their composition and management.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12231-015-9309-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Home gardens are diverse and multi-layered agro-ecosystems (Fernandes and Nair 1986) comprising small-scale production units surrounding the homestead of families maintained with family labor
The results of this study revealed that Wild food plants (WFPs) species vary spatially within home gardens, which is reflected in the following findings: (a) home gardens comprise a wide array of structurally different spatial configurations with multiple species assemblages; (b) diversity, as observed in the analysis of species density (Spd), H’ and D, was different in each spatial configuration; and (c) the seasonal abundance and frequency of occurrence of WFP species varies when comparing different spatial configurations within home gardens
The findings of this study showed that multiple use types of WFPs occur in the different spatial configurations within home gardens, where WFPs presented up to nine additional uses besides food
Summary
Home gardens are diverse and multi-layered agro-ecosystems (Fernandes and Nair 1986) comprising small-scale production units surrounding the homestead of families maintained with family labor. Most research has focused on home gardens as integrated multi-species systems, giving greatest. ECONOMIC BOTANY [VOL 69 attention to the variation of species diversity among home gardens (e.g., Padoch and de Jong 1991; Perrault-Archambault and Coomes 2008; Peyre et al 2006; Soemarwoto 1987). Several studies have paid special attention to the vertical variation of species by comparing the different layers of canopy strata constituting home gardens (e.g., de Clerck and Negreros-Castillo 2000; Fernandes and Nair 1986; Gajaseni and Gajaseni 1999). More rigorous research on the ecological basis of home gardens is needed (Nair 2001)
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