Dataset Information

Ecological and socio-economic functions across tropical land use systems after rainforest conversion.

ABSTRACT: Tropical lowland rainforests are increasingly threatened by the expansion of agriculture and the extraction of natural resources. In Jambi Province, Indonesia, the interdisciplinary EFForTS project focuses on the ecological and socio-economic dimensions of rainforest conversion to jungle rubber agroforests and monoculture plantations of rubber and oil palm. Our data confirm that rainforest transformation and land use intensification lead to substantial losses in biodiversity and related ecosystem functions, such as decreased above- and below-ground carbon stocks. Owing to rapid step-wise transformation from forests to agroforests to monoculture plantations and renewal of each plantation type every few decades, the converted land use systems are continuously dynamic, thus hampering the adaptation of animal and plant communities. On the other hand, agricultural rainforest transformation systems provide increased income and access to education, especially for migrant smallholders. Jungle rubber and rubber monocultures are associated with higher financial land productivity but lower financial labour productivity compared to oil palm, which influences crop choice: smallholders that are labour-scarce would prefer oil palm while land-scarce smallholders would prefer rubber. Collecting long-term data in an interdisciplinary context enables us to provide decision-makers and stakeholders with scientific insights to facilitate the reconciliation between economic interests and ecological sustainability in tropical agricultural landscapes.

SUBMITTER: Drescher J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4843696 | biostudies-other | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Ecological and socio-economic functions across tropical land use systems after rainforest conversion.

Drescher Jochen J Rembold Katja K Allen Kara K Beckschäfer Philip P Buchori Damayanti D Clough Yann Y Faust Heiko H Fauzi Anas M AM Gunawan Dodo D Hertel Dietrich D Irawan Bambang B Jaya I Nengah S IN Klarner Bernhard B Kleinn Christoph C Knohl Alexander A Kotowska Martyna M MM Krashevska Valentyna V Krishna Vijesh V Leuschner Christoph C Lorenz Wolfram W Meijide Ana A Melati Dian D Nomura Miki M Pérez-Cruzado César C Qaim Matin M Siregar Iskandar Z IZ Steinebach Stefanie S Tjoa Aiyen A Tscharntke Teja T Wick Barbara B Wiegand Kerstin K Kreft Holger H Scheu Stefan S

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 20160501 1694

Tropical lowland rainforests are increasingly threatened by the expansion of agriculture and the extraction of natural resources. In Jambi Province, Indonesia, the interdisciplinary EFForTS project focuses on the ecological and socio-economic dimensions of rainforest conversion to jungle rubber agroforests and monoculture plantations of rubber and oil palm. Our data confirm that rainforest transformation and land use intensification lead to substantial losses in biodiversity and related ecosyste ...[more]

PMID: 27114577

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Project description:Land-use changes have dramatically transformed tropical landscapes. We describe an ecological-economic land-use change model as an integrated, exploratory tool used to analyze how tropical land-use change affects ecological and socio-economic functions. The model analysis seeks to determine what kind of landscape mosaic can improve the ensemble of ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, and economic benefit based on the synergies and trade-offs that we have to account for. More specifically, (1) how do specific ecosystem functions, such as carbon storage, and economic functions, such as household consumption, relate to each other? (2) How do external factors, such as the output prices of crops, affect these relationships? (3) How do these relationships change when production inefficiency differs between smallholder farmers and learning is incorporated? We initialize the ecological-economic model with artificially generated land-use maps parameterized to our study region. The economic sub-model simulates smallholder land-use management decisions based on a profit maximization assumption. Each household determines factor inputs for all household fields and decides on land-use change based on available wealth. The ecological sub-model includes a simple account of carbon sequestration in above-ground and below-ground vegetation. We demonstrate model capabilities with results on household consumption and carbon sequestration from different output price and farming efficiency scenarios. The overall results reveal complex interactions between the economic and ecological spheres. For instance, model scenarios with heterogeneous crop-specific household productivity reveal a comparatively high inertia of land-use change. Our model analysis even shows such an increased temporal stability in landscape composition and carbon stocks of the agricultural area under dynamic price trends. These findings underline the utility of ecological-economic models, such as ours, to act as exploratory tools which can advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the trade-offs and synergies of ecological and economic functions in tropical landscapes.

Project description:BackgroundThe consequences of deforestation and agricultural treatments are complex and affect all trophic levels. Changes of microbial community structure and composition associated with rainforest conversion to managed systems such as rubber and oil palm plantations have been shown by 16S rRNA gene analysis previously, but functional profile shifts have been rarely addressed. In this study, we analysed the effects of rainforest conversion to different converted land use systems, including agroforestry ("jungle rubber") and monoculture plantations comprising rubber and oil palm, on soilborne microbial communities by metagenomic shotgun sequencing in Sumatra, Indonesia.ResultsThe diversity of bacteria and archaea decreased whereas diversity of fungi increased in the converted land use systems. The soil microbiome was dominated by bacteria followed by fungi. We detected negative effects of land use conversion on the abundance of Proteobacteria (especially on Rhizobiales and Burkholderiales) and positive effects on the abundance of Acidobacteria and Actinobacteria. These abundance changes were mainly driven by pH, C:N ratio, and Fe, C and N content. With increasing land use intensity, the functional diversity decreased for bacteria, archaea and fungi. Gene abundances of specific metabolisms such as nitrogen metabolism and carbon fixation were affected by land use management practices. The abundance of genes related to denitrification and nitrogen fixation increased in plantations while abundance of genes involved in nitrification and methane oxidation showed no significant difference. Linking taxonomic and functional assignment per read indicated that nitrogen metabolism-related genes were mostly assigned to members of the Rhizobiales and Burkholderiales. Abundances of carbon fixation genes increased also with increasing land use intensity. Motility- and interaction-related genes, especially genes involved in flagellar assembly and chemotaxis genes, decreased towards managed land use systems. This indicated a shift in mobility and interspecific interactions in bacterial communities within these soils.ConclusionsRainforest conversion to managed land use systems drastically affects structure and functional potential of soil microbial communities. The decrease in motility- and interaction-related functions from rainforest to converted land use systems indicated not only a shift in nutrient cycling but also in community dynamics. Fertilizer application and correspondingly higher availability of nutrients in intensively managed plantations lead to an environment in which interspecific interactions are not favoured compared to rainforest soils. We could directly link effects of land management, microbial community structure and functional potential for several metabolic processes. As our study is the first study of this size and detail on soil microbial communities in tropical systems, we provide a basis for further analyses.

Project description:Despite an increasing amount of data on the effects of tropical land use on continental forest fauna and flora, it is debatable whether the choice of the indicator variables allows for a proper evaluation of the role of modified habitats in mitigating the global biodiversity crisis. While many single-taxon studies have highlighted that species with narrow geographic ranges especially suffer from habitat modification, there is no multi-taxa study available which consistently focuses on geographic range composition of the studied indicator groups. We compiled geographic range data for 180 bird, 119 butterfly, 204 tree and 219 understorey plant species sampled along a gradient of habitat modification ranging from near-primary forest through young secondary forest and agroforestry systems to annual crops in the southwestern lowlands of Cameroon. We found very similar patterns of declining species richness with increasing habitat modification between taxon-specific groups of similar geographic range categories. At the 8 km(2) spatial level, estimated richness of endemic species declined in all groups by 21% (birds) to 91% (trees) from forests to annual crops, while estimated richness of widespread species increased by +101% (trees) to +275% (understorey plants), or remained stable (-2%, butterflies). Even traditional agroforestry systems lost estimated endemic species richness by -18% (birds) to -90% (understorey plants). Endemic species richness of one taxon explained between 37% and 57% of others (positive correlations) and taxon-specific richness in widespread species explained up to 76% of variation in richness of endemic species (negative correlations). The key implication of this study is that the range size aspect is fundamental in assessments of conservation value via species inventory data from modified habitats. The study also suggests that even ecologically friendly agricultural matrices may be of much lower value for tropical conservation than indicated by mere biodiversity value.

Dataset Information

Ecological and socio-economic functions across tropical land use systems after rainforest conversion.

Publications

Ecological and socio-economic functions across tropical land use systems after rainforest conversion.

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