Abstract
The development of sustainable agricultural systems in drylands is currently a crucial issue in the context of mitigating the outcomes of population growth under the conditions of climatic changes. The need to meet the growing demand for food, fodder, and fuel, together with the hazards due to climate change, requires cross-disciplinary studies of ways to increase livelihood while minimizing the impact on the environment. Practices of agroforestry systems, in which herbaceous species are intercropped between rows of woody species plantations, have been shown to mitigate several of the predicaments of climatic changes. Focusing on agroforestry in drylands, we address the question of how we can improve the performance of agroforestry systems in those areas. As vegetation in drylands tends to self-organize in various patterns, it seems essential to explore the various patterns that agroforestry systems tend to form and their impact on the performance of these systems in terms of biomass production, resilience to droughts, and water use efficiency. We use a two-soil-layers vegetation model to study the relationship between deep-rooted woody vegetation and shallow herbaceous vegetation, and explore how self-organization in different spatial patterns influences the performance of agroforestry systems. We focus on three generic classes of patterns, spots, gaps, and stripes, assess these patterns using common metrics for agroforestry systems, and examine their resilience to droughts. We show that in contrast to the widespread practice of planting the woody and herbaceous species in alternating rows, that is, in a stripe pattern, planting the woody species in hexagonal spot patterns may increase the system’s resilience to droughts. Furthermore, hexagonal spot patterns reduce the suppression of herbs growth by the woody vegetation, therefore maintaining higher crop yields. We conclude by discussing some limitations of this study and their significance.
Highlights
Climatic changes worldwide call for exploration of innovative designs for agriculture and ecosystem management
We base the naming of the patterned branches on the woody species, and refer to the mixed-patterned states that bifurcate at BP3 from the uniform mixed woody–herbaceous branch as stripes, gaps, and spots
The biomimicry hypothesis suggests that human-made land use systems will benefit if they mimic the resource-use patterns of natural ecosystems adapted to the local environmental conditions [16]
Summary
Climatic changes worldwide call for exploration of innovative designs for agriculture and ecosystem management. Self-organization in the design of agroforestry systems precipitation is on a critical balance with evapotranspiration [1]. These regions are estimated to support more than 38% of the world’s population. The risk of further degradation and expansion of drylands, along with the forecasts of population growth in those areas, calls for developing methods of sustainable use of resources. These systems have been suggested as sustainable methods for agricultural and forest production, that may mitigate the adverse impact of climate change on agriculture [4]. Dryland agroforestry has been demonstrated as an advantageous method over conventional agricultural systems in terms of soil stabilization, biodiversity, bioproductivity, and restoration of degraded lands [5,6,7,8]
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