IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i11p4600-d367375.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Traditional Agroforestry Systems and Conservation of Native Plant Diversity of Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco J. Rendón-Sandoval

    (Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8701, Morelia 58190, Mexico)

  • Alejandro Casas

    (Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8701, Morelia 58190, Mexico)

  • Ana I. Moreno-Calles

    (Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores (ENES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8701, Morelia 58190, Mexico)

  • Ignacio Torres-García

    (Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores (ENES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8701, Morelia 58190, Mexico)

  • Eduardo García-Frapolli

    (Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8701, Morelia 58190, Mexico)

Abstract

Traditional agroforestry systems (TAFS), which integrate crops with wildlife, are important reservoirs of human culture and technical experiences with a high capacity for biodiversity conservation. Our study aimed to evaluate the capacity of TAFS to conserve the floristic diversity of tropical dry forests (TDF) in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley, Mexico. We compared TAFS and TDF by measuring their forest cover, floristic composition, and structure, in addition to documenting the motivations of people to maintain native vegetation in their agricultural fields. We conducted a restricted randomized sampling of perennial plant species, including nine sites of TAFS and nine of TDF to determine the alpha, beta, and gamma diversity. Furthermore, we conducted semi-structured interviews with peasants who managed the agricultural plots we studied. We also performed workshops with people of the communities where surveys were performed. Our findings show that TAFS can maintain, on average, 68% of the species (95% of them native to the region) and 53% of the abundance of individuals occurring in the adjacent TDF. TAFS harbour 30% (39 species) of plants endemic to Mexico. Total species richness of TDF and TAFS were similar, as well as the effective number of species or communities estimated for the alpha, beta, and gamma diversity, but differed in the abundance of individuals. The high species turnover recorded in TDF (72%) and TAFS (74%) has profound implications for conservation, suggesting that it would be necessary to maintain several sites in order to conserve the regional diversity of native vegetation. Material, non-material, and regulatory contributions were reported to be the reason that peasants take into account maintaining natural vegetation. TAFS associated with TDF in the region (also called “Apancles”) contain an important richness, diversity, and endemism of components of natural ecosystems, as well as provide multiple socio-ecological contributions. These systems could represent a viable alternative to reconcile biological conservation with social well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco J. Rendón-Sandoval & Alejandro Casas & Ana I. Moreno-Calles & Ignacio Torres-García & Eduardo García-Frapolli, 2020. "Traditional Agroforestry Systems and Conservation of Native Plant Diversity of Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-27, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:4600-:d:367375
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4600/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4600/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcon, Eric & Hérault, Bruno, 2015. "entropart: An R Package to Measure and Partition Diversity," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(i08).
    2. Fischer, Joern & Abson, David J. & Butsic, Van & Chappell, M. Jahi & Ekroos, Johan & Hanspach, Jan & Kuemmerle, Tobias & Smith, Henrik G. & von Wehrden, Henrik, 2014. "Land sparing versus land sharing: Moving forward," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 7(3), pages 149-157.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rubén Ortega-Álvarez & Alejandro Casas, 2022. "The Feeding Landscape: Bird and Human Use of Food Resources across a Biocultural Landscape of the Colombian Andes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-21, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benjamin T. Phalan, 2018. "What Have We Learned from the Land Sparing-sharing Model?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-24, May.
    2. André Eduardo Biscaia Lacerda & Ana Lúcia Hanisch & Evelyn Roberta Nimmo, 2020. "Leveraging Traditional Agroforestry Practices to Support Sustainable and Agrobiodiverse Landscapes in Southern Brazil," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-19, June.
    3. Ryan S. Naylor & Carter A. Hunt, 2021. "Tourism and Livelihood Sovereignty: A Theoretical Introduction and Research Agenda for Arctic Contexts," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-11, August.
    4. Chervier, Colas & Le Velly, Gwenolé & Ezzine-de-Blas, Driss, 2019. "When the Implementation of Payments for Biodiversity Conservation Leads to Motivation Crowding-out: A Case Study From the Cardamoms Forests, Cambodia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 499-510.
    5. Loconto, Allison & Desquilbet, Marion & Moreau, Théo & Couvet, Denis & Dorin, Bruno, 2020. "The land sparing – land sharing controversy: Tracing the politics of knowledge," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    6. Emmanuelle Augeraud-Véron & Giorgio Fabbri & Katheline Schubert, 2019. "The Value of Biodiversity as an Insurance Device," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1068-1081.
    7. Nordén, Anna & Coria, Jessica & Jönsson, Anna Maria & Lagergren, Fredrik & Lehsten, Veiko, 2017. "Divergence in stakeholders' preferences: Evidence from a choice experiment on forest landscapes preferences in Sweden," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 179-195.
    8. Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle & Fabbri, Giorgio & Schubert, Katheline, 2021. "Volatility-reducing biodiversity conservation under strategic interactions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    9. Jacqueline Loos & Henrik Von Wehrden, 2018. "Beyond Biodiversity Conservation: Land Sharing Constitutes Sustainable Agriculture in European Cultural Landscapes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-11, May.
    10. Accatino, Francesco & Tonda, Alberto & Dross, Camille & Léger, François & Tichit, Muriel, 2019. "Trade-offs and synergies between livestock production and other ecosystem services," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 58-72.
    11. Miyuki Iiyama & Athanase Mukuralinda & Jean Damascene Ndayambaje & Bernard Musana & Alain Ndoli & Jeremias G. Mowo & Dennis Garrity & Stephen Ling & Vicky Ruganzu, 2018. "Tree-Based Ecosystem Approaches (TBEAs) as Multi-Functional Land Management Strategies—Evidence from Rwanda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-24, April.
    12. Ramos, Alya & Jujnovsky, Julieta & Almeida-Leñero, Lucía, 2018. "The relevance of stakeholders’ perceptions of ecosystem services in a rural-urban watershed in Mexico City," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 34(PA), pages 85-95.
    13. João Pompeu & Luciana Soler & Jean Ometto, 2018. "Modelling Land Sharing and Land Sparing Relationship with Rural Population in the Cerrado," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-19, July.
    14. Blanco, Julien & Sourdril, Anne & Deconchat, Marc & Barnaud, Cécile & San Cristobal, Magali & Andrieu, Emilie, 2020. "How farmers feel about trees: Perceptions of ecosystem services and disservices associated with rural forests in southwestern France," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    15. Neyret, M. & Fischer, M. & Allan, E. & Hölzel, N. & Klaus, V.H. & Kleinebecker, T. & Krauss, J. & Le Provost, G. & Peter, S. & Schenk, N. & Simons, N.K. & van der Plas, F. & Binkenstein, J. & Börschig, 2021. "Assessing the impact of grassland management on landscape multifunctionality," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    16. Marion Desquilbet & Bruno Dorin & Denis Couvet, 2016. "Land Sharing vs Land Sparing to Conserve Biodiversity: How Agricultural Markets Make the Difference [land-sharing/land-sparing, comment les marchés font la différence]," Post-Print hal-03948463, HAL.
    17. Nina Zarrineh & Karim C. Abbaspour & Ann Van Griensven & Bernard Jeangros & Annelie Holzkämper, 2018. "Model-Based Evaluation of Land Management Strategies with Regard to Multiple Ecosystem Services," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-21, October.
    18. Schneider, Julia M. & Zabel, Florian & Schünemann, Franziska & Delzeit, Ruth & Mauser, Wolfram, 2022. "Global cropland could be almost halved: Assessment of land saving potentials under different strategies and implications for agricultural markets," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 253265, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Ferrarini, Andrea & Serra, Paolo & Almagro, María & Trevisan, Marco & Amaducci, Stefano, 2017. "Multiple ecosystem services provision and biomass logistics management in bioenergy buffers: A state-of-the-art review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 277-290.
    20. Gasselin, Pierre & Lardon, Sylvie & Cerdan, Claire & Loudiyi, Salma & Sautier, Denis, 2020. "The coexistence of agricultural and food models at the territorial scale: an analytical framework for a research agenda," Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 101(2-3), July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:4600-:d:367375. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.