Harmonizing conservation and agricultural production across tropical countryside
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- One of humanity's greatest challenges will be increasing yields and achieving food security while at the same time safeguarding biodiversity and Earth's life support systems. This thesis examines interactions between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and agriculture in tropical farming landscapes. Across the world, many crop species were originally cultivated together and with patches of native vegetation. Now, industrial agriculture is expanding, with vast monocultures replacing diversified farming systems. In chapter 1, I briefly review our state of knowledge concerning the consequences of such land-use intenficiation on biodiversity and ecosystem services. In chapters 2 and 3, I use one of the most comprehensive datasets available for any tropical vertebrate taxa to show that bird communities are more resilient, both locally and at large spatial scales, to low-intensity agricultural systems than high-intensity systems. How these changes in biodiversity will translate into changes in ecosystem processes and services is largely unknown. Of particular concern is the impact on agricultural pests. In chapter 4, I develop a theoretical model to predict the consequences of predator species loss on pest abundance. I find that the rate of pest-control decline is highly dependent on which predator species are lost. In chapter 5, I use a large-scale exclusion experiment to examine interactions between birds, bats, predatory arthropods, and pests in Costa Rican coffee plantations. I find that birds consume pest arthropods, while bats consume predatory arthropods. These different functional roles affect coffee differentially-- I report that birds, but not bats, prevent leaf damage. Harmonizing conservation and agricultural production is clearly possible, but requires understanding the cascading consequences of land-use decisions. In chapter 6, I demonstrate a case study for how coffee plantations could be managed to enhance biodiversity and production. I provide the first ever evidence that maintaining rainforest may provide an economic benefit to farmers through enhancing the control of crop pests, in this case coffee's most damaging insect pest, the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei). These results indicate that adjusting production practices to conserve rainforest and associated biodiversity may limit infestation from the most damaging pest of one of the world's most economically important crops.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2013 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Karp, Daniel Sol |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Biology. |
| Primary advisor | Daily, Gretchen C |
| Thesis advisor | Daily, Gretchen C |
| Thesis advisor | Dirzo, Rodolfo |
| Thesis advisor | Fukami, Tadashi, 1972- |
| Thesis advisor | Hadly, Elizabeth Anne, 1958- |
| Thesis advisor | Mooney, Harold |
| Advisor | Dirzo, Rodolfo |
| Advisor | Fukami, Tadashi, 1972- |
| Advisor | Hadly, Elizabeth Anne, 1958- |
| Advisor | Mooney, Harold |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Daniel Sol Karp. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Biology. |
| Thesis | Ph.D. Stanford University 2013 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2013 by Daniel Sol Karp
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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