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2 Annual litter and harvest yields and associated input quantities from a successional agroforestry system, a conventional cacao production system, and as noted in literature recommendations
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Over the past 30 years, successional agroforestry systems (SAFS) have been increasingly promoted in Latin America as an approach for recovering soils and improving agro-ecosystems in degraded landscapes. Successional agroforestry systems (SAFS) are complex, multi-strata systems composed of species assemblages that resemble native forest structures....
Citations
... There is a bank of scientific literature regarding intermediate successional systems; commonly referred to as forest gardens, food forests, successional agroforestry or stratified multifunctional species assemblages (Jacke and Toensmeier 2005;Wiersum 2004;Young 2017). This literature includes references to nature analogousness, analog forestry and eco-synthesis whilst setting out some fundamental concepts and criteria of how to select species that could be functional ecological analogs in place of less desirable native species when designing a forest garden system. ...
... The key point regarding these systems is that, as Jacke and Toensmeier (2005) state in the case of indigenous American successional agroforestry, they were so ingrained within the environment it could hardly be called agriculture. This shows that productive agricultural systems can effectively mimic native ecosystems by incorporating a matrix of high species diversity, structural complexity, low management demands with minimal inputs, and a plethora of yields (Young 2017). In addition, such systems may persist for thousands of years once established, testament to their resilience and adaptability in the face of emerging pests and diseases, climate change, and other biotic and abiotic factors (Maezumi et al. 2018). ...
... Essentially, the substitute species is a functional ecological analog selected in place of an ecologically similar species for a specific purpose. Criteria for achieving this might include selecting plants based on individual phenological traits such as the timing of flowering, their soil preferences, or structural traits such as height and form (Jacke and Toensmeier 2005;Young 2017). But often species choice is also based on economic considerations, such as whether the plants' yields help to sustain an agricultural business or landholding by meeting the demands of markets. ...
Scientific literature regarding forest garden systems highlights the potential for nature analogous species assemblages or polycultures. This literature forms a conceptual framework for analog species selection during the design process; taking plant structure, function, phenology and soil preferences into account along with additionality provided by potential yields (food, fibre, medicine) and facilitative actions such as nitrogen fixation. These criteria were applied to a worked example of a forest garden polyculture, modelling the significant potential for nature analogous designs. Results show that it is theoretically possible to create a polyculture of five different successional layers that is both productive, yielding food, fibre and medicine, and analogous with a native species assemblage that might ordinarily establish under a natural process of succession.
... The biophysical diversity and cattle grown on it are susceptible to different levels of control. Large farms in the northern countries and plantations in the south have typically identical management practices; however, small farms tolerate diverse management approaches in different microenvironments (Uphoff, 2013;Young, 2017). Therefore, the overall goal of this review paper is to explore the functions, diverse causes of biodiversity loss, and sustainability choices for agrobiodiversity in landscape ecology. ...
The agricultural landscape is very important for the production of goods and services, which are vital to human life. However, agricultural intensification affects the ecological interconnection, function, structure, and capability of landscape production and productivity. Therefore, this review aims to understand the role, diverse causes of biodiversity losses, and maintenance options of agrobiodiversity in landscape ecology. To achieve these objectives, different reputable journal articles that were published starting in 2013 until now were collected, organized, summarized, and compiled carefully. Agrobiodiversity includes all the components of biological diversity that are relevant to agricultural ecosystems. It has an essential role in the sustainable development of agricultural systems, which provide food, fiber, fuel, fodder, medicines, and other products for subsistence. Agricultural biodiversity has a great contribution to food security, production, environmental sustainability, diversifying rural livelihoods, and rural development. These essential agrobiodiversity are endangered due to the ignoring of native knowledge, the absence of local institutions and management systems, inequitable tenure, market pressures, and demographic factors. Thus, conserving agrobiodiversity and its multiple functions included awareness creation in ecosystem management, promoting local adaptive management, supporting local participation, strengthening local rights and tenure property, improving trade-related policies, and providing economic incentives.
... Description of three agroforestry types and six agroforestry sub-types used for the classification of 30 agroforestry systems. Successional perennial (Young, 2017) University of São Paulo and followed standard procedures (MAPA, 2017). Nutrient concentrations were multiplied by the dry weight of the sample and converted to kg ha − 1 . ...
Tropical soils are prone to rapid degradation if not managed well, and agroforestry systems have the potential to restore degraded soils and support agricultural production together with other ecosystem services. In Brazil, an increasing number of pioneering farmers are establishing agroforestry systems on previously cleared farmland. However, while there are a wide range of agroforestry systems, this diversity has hardly been quantified, and it is not clear how these systems differ in their capacity for nutrient cycling to reverse soil degradation. The objectives of the study were to assess innovative agroforestry systems in terms of taxonomic and functional diversity, spatial structure and management, and to assess how these systems differ in terms of structural complexity and their potential for nutrient cycling. We assessed a LiDAR-derived stand structural complexity index (SSCI), interrow spacing, stem density, tree species richness and diversity, community weighted means (CWM) of foliar nitrogen and wood density, livestock density, pruning and mowing regimes in 30 agroforestry systems in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. We used N, P, K, Ca and Mg stocks in litter as a proxy for nutrient cycling. The agroforestry systems could be broadly categorized into silvopastures, multistrata and successional agroforestry systems. These types spanned a gradient of structural complexity, and this complexity was positively associated with tree species richness and planting density. Litter nutrient stocks were positively associated with pruning and mulching, and negatively associated with CWM of wood density, indicating the importance of pioneer trees. Overall, our results suggest that densely planted, pruned agroforestry systems that contain high species richness, including pioneer trees, contain relatively high amounts of N, P, K, Ca and Mg in their litter. These findings provide insight in the key characteristics of agroforestry systems to support nutrient cycling, and can inform the design of agroforestry systems for the regeneration of degraded agricultural land.
... There are various fields of research that focus explicitly on imitating nature, namely: biomimetics, biomimicry, bioinspiration, and bionics (Vincent et al. 2006;Hoeller et al. 2013). There are also many fields that, at least on some theorizations, take the idea of imitating nature as a basic principle or premise, including: agroforestry (Young 2017), artificial neural networks (Krogh 2008), ecological design (Todd and Todd 1994), evolutionary computing (Foster 2001), industrial ecology (Lowe and Evans 1995), and regenerative agriculture (Gremmen 2022). Lastly, there are several fields that may plausibly be seen as very often involving the imitation of nature -even if it is not always recognized or emphasized -including: artificial intelligence (Bar-Cohen 2006), the circular economy (MacArthur 2013), and synthetic biology (Bensaude- Vincent 2009). ...
Imitating nature is an ever more popular strategy in many fields of science and engineering research, from ecological engineering to artificial intelligence. But while biomimetics and related fields have recently attracted increased attention from philosophers, there has been relatively little engagement with what I suggest we see as their basic epistemological presupposition: that we may acquire knowledge from nature. I argue that emphasizing and exploring this presupposition opens up a new approach to epistemology, based on a shift from a conventional epistemological relationship to nature as object of knowledge to a biomimetic relationship to nature as source of knowledge.
... Tree stem density influences SOC storage in agroforestry systems (Cardinael et al., 2018;Saha et al., 2010), and is a good indicator the of spatial structure of agroforestry systems. Lastly, shade tree management influences SOC storage and nutrient cycling (Cardinael et al., 2021;Tscharntke et al., 2011) and a large share of the farmers participating in our study managed trees by intensive pruning & mulching (also known as chop & drop, Young, 2017).This practice has been shown to positively influence C cycling in long-term experiments (Schneidewind et al., 2019) as well as other agroforestry systems in the state of São Paulo, Brazil (Cezar et al., 2015;Froufe et al., 2020). Therefore, the frequency of pruning & mulching was included in our complexity assessment to represent its management dimension. ...
Agroforestry systems are often promoted as solutions to address land degradation and climate change. However, agroforestry is an umbrella term for a large variety of systems and it is not clear how their degree of complexity influences their provision of soil-based ecosystem services, such as soil organic carbon (SOC) storage and nutrient cycling. Furthermore, a knowledge gap remains whether agroforestry systems perform equally well on all soil
types. The objectives of this study were 1) to assess the links between agroforestry complexity, nutrient cycling and SOC fractions, and 2) to assess how soil texture influences these relationships in Brazilian agroforestry systems. We sampled 59 agroforestry plots across 30 sites in Sao Paulo state, Brazil, and 8 monocrop sites (6 pastures and 2 crop monocultures). The 38 sites represented a soil textural gradient, ranging from very sandy to very clayey (clay content range 25 – 620 g kg− 1). An Agroforestry Complexity Index (ACI) was defined based on
tree species richness, stem density and pruning management. Nutrient (N, P, K, Ca, Mg) and C contents were determined in litter and soil (0–30 cm depth) samples, and mineral-associated organic C (MAOC) and particulate organic C (POC) in soil samples were assessed as well. ACI was positively associated with C, N, P, Ca and Mg stocks in litter, and these litter nutrients were in turn positively associated with the corresponding soil nutrient
stocks. Associations between soil nutrients and MAOC were stronger on sandy soils than on clayey soils, particularly for P, Ca and Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC). For POC, robust relationships with nutrients were only found on sandy soils. Structural Equation Models indicated causal relationships between agroforestry complexity, P and Ca cycling, and MAOC and POC stocks in topsoils. Our results indicate that nutrients effectively cycle from in situ mulch into plant-available soil pools and highlight the synergies between nutrient cycling and stable C stocks that can be achieved in complex agroforestry systems. These synergies seem to be particularly strong on sandy soils (<15 % clay).
... Across the 4 decades, the top 10 most frequent terms in the corpus represented both fundamental ecology (i.e., forest, species, soil, land, water) and research applications (i.e., development, management) ( Figure 1B). Forest was unsurprisingly the most frequent term since it is a root word of the term agroforestry (Bene et al., 1977;King, 1987), agroforestry systems are designed to mimic the structure and function of forests to varying degrees (Altieri and Nicholls, 2004;Malézieux, 2012;Young, 2017), and a significant body of research uses native forests as a reference for understanding biodiversity and ecosystem services in nearby agroforestry systems (e.g., Valencia et al., 2016). Forest was followed in frequency by species, soil, and land, further indicating that ecological themes have dominated agroforestry research over the past 4 decades. ...
Agroforestry has a high potential to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation as a nature-based climate solution and is increasingly included as a climate strategy in international agreements and national plans. Yet, how to equitably increase and sustain agroforestry on the scale needed to meet these targets remains unclear. Examining broad trends in the existing 4 decades of agroforestry literature can highlight gaps and opportunities for future research that enables agroforestry transitions. Using text analytics and a full-text, corpus-based approach, we analyzed changes in word use in 9,664 agroforestry research articles and reports published between 1980 and 2020 with regard to 4 key themes of the social dimensions of agroforestry transitions: (1) agreements and policies; (2) scales and decision-making agents; (3) knowledge, culture, and equity; and (4) frameworks and methods. We then compared the frequency of these themes in research articles and reports. Despite the most frequently used terms across all 4 decades being primarily ecological (e.g., forest, species, soil), the lexicon of agroforestry literature has expanded to incorporate more social, economic, and political elements (e.g., livelihood, knowledge, community) over time, and as agroforestry has become more central to climate change adaptation and mitigation targets. Trends in the frequency of several terms (e.g., biodiversity, development, climate) corresponded with the signing of intergovernmental agreements, illustrating the responsiveness of the field to global priorities. Reports had a higher frequency of terms related to social themes than research articles. We discuss the implications of these emergent trends and opportunities for future research in support of sustainable and just agroforestry transitions.
... Active restoration through mixed native species planting and passive restoration via natural regeneration are the most common approaches of land restoration in tropical areas (Chazdon and Guariguata, 2016;Rodrigues et al., 2011). A third restoration approach is the implementation of successional agroforestry systems, an active restoration with a mix of native and exotic trees intercropped with agriculture, which have the capacity to mimic natural processes and thus to build forest-like structures in final stages (Miccolis et al., 2019;Young, 2017). In several tropical regions, such the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, active restoration was the most used approach (Brancalion et al., 2016). ...
... Agroforestry has been widely recognized natural resource management approach that tries conservation of soils, water, and climate in many parts of Africa, Latin America, and Asia [1][2][3]. In recent decades, it has received growing attention from farmers, government agencies, land-use managers, researchers, and academics as biodiversity conservation approach [4,5]. Agroforestry buffers deforestation rate [6]; allows landscape connectivity [7]; and provides supplementary habitat for remnant species [8]. ...
Agroforestry has been recognized as an effective circa citum conservation strategy in Ethiopia. Despite progress in the recent past, there has been very little research characterizing the management strategies of farmers for agroforestry practices (AFP) and quantifying their contribution to biodiversity conservation. We (i) characterized the management strategies of farmers for agroforestry practices and (ii) assessed the floristic composition, diversity, and structure of woody species in agroforestry practices in Northwestern Ethiopia. We interviewed farm owners to gather information on the management strategies of agroforestry practices. We also collected biophysical data using quadrats established in 126 fields selected from homegardens (HG), coffee-based (CS), and Rhamnus prinoides (Locally Gesho)-based practices. A total of 83 trees and shrubs (76 % native and 24 % non-native) from 40 families and 47 genera recorded in the study area. The results indicate that AFPs represent diverse vertical and horizontal management strategies, and plant functions, which vary among AFPs and wealth status. The results suggest the potential of agroforestry practices for supporting livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. Farmers' management practices and strategies affect the species diversity of AFPs. The mean height (m), basal area (m² ha⁻¹), and diameter at breast height (cm) varied among AFPs. The average stem density ha⁻¹ as well as species richness per farm significantly varied among AFPs and wealth status. Richness, Shannon, and Simpson's diversity varied among HGs in the study sites. In the Lay Armachiho district, species richness, Shannon, and Simpson's diversity significantly varied (P < 0.05) among agroforestry practices. Our study suggests management strategies and household wealth status that affect the diversity of woody plants in AFPs should be consider to improve biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes. Since AFPs play a vital role in biodiversity conservation that is part of a bigger conservation strategy, the suggestion of AFPs to apply in Ethiopia is proposed. To advance the overall contribution, further studies on the optimization of technical, socio-economic and environmental (including density and diversity) performance of agroforestry practices is needed.
... Nos Sistemas Agroflorestais Sucessionais (SAFS), por exemplo, o cultivo das espécies é planejado para que ocorra uma mudança na composição de espécies ao longo do tempo ou que as espécies cultivadas desde a implantação se tornem importantes no sistema em diferentes fases, dependendo da velocidade de crescimento e porte das espécies (Young 2017, Santos et al. 2021a, 2021b. Este planejamento tenta mimetizar o desenvolvimento florestal fazendo uso da sucessão ecológica para acelerar alguns processos ecossistêmicos (Jose 2012). ...
A identidade funcional (valores dominantes de atributos das plantas) e a diversidade funcional (variação nos valores de atributos) fazem parte da estrutura funcional de uma comunidade de plantas e podem pautar a composição de consórcios de espécies para prover múltiplos serviços agroecossistêmicos. Este estudo teve como objetivo avaliar o efeito da estrutura funcional de consórcios de plantas cultivadas sobre a massa e relação C/N da biomassa podada e na serapilheira acumulada em Sistemas Agroflorestais Sucessionais com baixos insumos em um solo arenoso de baixa fertilidade localizado em Santa Catarina, região subtrópico úmido do Brasil. Implantamos um experimento de longa duração em campo em 2016, em blocos completos casualizados, com seis repetições e três tratamentos que avaliaram a estrutura funcional dos consórcios. Quatro atributos funcionais foram coletados nas plantas cultivadas: concentração de N foliar, pH da folha, área foliar específica e conteúdo de matéria seca foliar. Para caracterizar a identidade funcional calculamos as médias dos atributos ponderadas pelas biomassas relativas de cada cultura conhecida como Community Weighted Mean (CWM). A diversidade funcional foi calculada pela entropia quadrática de Rao, também ponderada pela biomassa relativa de cada cultura. Uma análise de componentes principais foi realizada para preservar o máximo de informações. Também, a análise de regressão foi realizada usando modelos lineares mistos para explicar as variáveis resposta (massa de serapilheira acumulada e relações C:N de serapilhera acumulada, caule e folha na biomassa podada). Dois componentes principais explicaram conjuntamente 79% da variação dos dados dos índices que mediam a estrutura funcional das comunidades. O primeiro componente (PC1) foi relacionado forte e negativamente com os índices de diversidade funcional, enquanto o segundo (PC2) foi relacionado forte e positivamente com os índices de identidade funcional (CWM de pH foliar, LNC e SLA). Conforme predito pela hipótese de razão de massa (que sugere que uma função ecossistêmica é influenciada mais fortemente pelas espécies mais dominantes numa comunidade), consórcios de culturas dominados por plantas com folhas grandes e finas (alta área foliar específica), alta concentração de N foliar e alto pH foliar resultaram em comunidades vegetais com baixa relação de C:N nas folhas e caules da biomassa disponível para poda, e produziram serapilheiras acumuladas com relação C:N baixa. Assim, destacamos que a média de atributos das plantas consorciadas (identidade funcional) pode ser mais importante do que a diversidade funcional no manejo da qualidade da biomassa e serrapilheira em sistemas agroflorestais em solos nutricionalmente pobres. Functional identity (dominant values of plant traits) and functional diversity (variation in trait values) are part of the functional structure of a plant community and may direct species choice in intercropping to promote multiple agroecosystem services. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of the functional structure of polycultures on the mass and C/N ratio of pruned crop biomass and litter layer in low–input Successional Agroforestry Systems on low–fertility sandy soil in Santa Catarina, humid subtropical Brazil. We established a long–term field experiment in 2016, in randomized complete blocks with six replications and three treatments that varied the functional structure of polycultures. We collected four traits of all intercropped plants: leaf N concentration (LNC), leaf pH, specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf dry matter content (LDMC). To characterize the functional identity, we calculated the trait mean, weighted by the relative biomass in each intercrop community (CWM). Functional diversity was calculated by Rao's quadratic entropy, also weighted by each crop’s relative biomass. We performed principal components analysis and fitted the data using linear mixed models. Two principal components jointly explained 79% of data variation that measured the functional structure of communities. The first component (PC1) was strongly negatively related to the functional diversity indices, while the second (PC2) was strongly positively related to the functional identity indices (CWM of pH, LNC and SLA). As predicted by the mass–ratio hypothesis, intercrops dominated by species with large and thin leaves (high specific leaf areas), high leaf N concentrations and high leaf pH resulted in plant communities with low C:N ratio in leaves and stems of biomass available for pruning and produced litter layers with low C:N ratio. This study suggests that functional identity may be more important than functional diversity to manage biomass and litter quality in agroforestry systems on nutrient–poor soils.
... Agroecological principles are adopted (no pesticides, chemical fertilisers and irrigation), including phytoremediation strategies. Productive and production-supporting elements are managed through intensive pruning and biomass inputs to the soil to facilitate greater dynamism, complexity and productivity [26,[79][80][81][82]. Figure 2 shows the analytical and interpretative methodology we set up. It was directly inspired and readapted from Babì Almenar's work [83]. ...
Peri-urban rural system rehabilitation is pivotal to the socio-ecological balanced functioning of urban systems. In this paper, we investigate the performance of agroforestry participative practices in rehabilitating peri-urban belts (in-field productive agroforestry; between-field landscape features). We test a new trans-disciplinary, multi-level analytical framework for the ecosystem services (ESs) assessment based on site-specific socio-ecological information. We parallelly analyse ecological and cultural traits: 1. agroecosystem components (flora–vegetation; human community); 2. their organization at the landscape level (landscape eco-mosaic; cultural landscape); and 3. their socio-ecological functions/processes. We compare the current state with a transformation scenario. The first application to the “Milano Porta Verde” agroecology hub, Italy, outlined: 1. the agro-eco-mosaic structuring and diversification improvement consequent to the agroforestry model spread (higher natural components percentage, agricultural patch shape complexity, landscape heterogeneity, landscape structural diversity, connectivity and circuitry); and 2. the cultural functions provided by participative practices (40 initiatives; 1860 people involved; 10 stakeholder types), enabling cultural landscape rehabilitation processes (higher accessibility, citizen empowerment, community and knowledge building, cultural values building). These results qualitatively inform the ES analysis. The potential ES supply matrices and maps showed an increase, through a transformation scenario, in the total ESs delivered by natural components (+44% support ESs; +36% regulating ESs) and agricultural components (+21% cultural ESs; +15% regulating ESs).
