BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT FOR INTEGRATING CONSERVATION AND PRODUCTION IN MODERN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS
Tesi di Dottorato
Data di Pubblicazione:
2017
Citazione:
BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT FOR INTEGRATING CONSERVATION AND PRODUCTION IN MODERN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS / M.e. Pierik ; tutor: S. Bocchi ; coordinatore: D. Bassi. DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE AGRARIE E AMBIENTALI - PRODUZIONE, TERRITORIO, AGROENERGIA, 2017 Mar 17. 29. ciclo, Anno Accademico 2016. [10.13130/pierik-mario-enrico_phd2017-03-17].
Abstract:
The conservation of biodiversity is one of the primary concerns when dealing with agro-ecosystems, which other than providing food and fodder resources, can benefit of high levels of ecological functioning. The multifunctionality of agro-ecosystems has to be assessed in a multidisciplinary way and new methodologies should be developed to tackle it, at different spatial and temporal scales. The multi-scale approach is useful to delineate an overall view of the ecosystem and productive services of agricultural areas. This manuscript presents three researches dealing with the conservation of biodiversity, with a view to agricultural production, that were carried out in three different contexts of interest. Such a choice was intended to permit the application of new techniques and to adapt existing ones to different spatial and temporal scales.
The first context was chosen to delineate a new methodology for conserving semi-natural water resources in an highly fragmented landscape scenario, the district of Milan. In particular, one of the key elements of the territory is that of fontanili, semi-natural plain springs that represent both strong water resources for agriculture and the remnants of ancient green zones, but are more and more affected by urbanization rates and intensification of agricultural practices. They are listed as habitats for some endangered species, mainly aquatic, and conservation strategies are needed to preserve their ecosystem services. We chose to rely on landscape ecology analyses, which are able to assess how ecological corridors are structured between sources and sinks of biodiversity, represented by fontanili. We developed a new indicator, called Fuzzy Functionality Index (FFI), that for the first time collimates two of the more common types of analysis: the structural analysis of landscape fragmentation, and the assessment of species-specific permeability to movement. The index, resulting from a participative process, was at the basis of the spatial assessment of ecological corridors between fontanili and has proven to be highly effective and very flexible. It permits one to assemble geographic data, the knowledge of a multidisciplinary team and open source software to obtain a simple-to-read, mapped index at virtually no cost, eliding the issues of the traditional methods.
The second context is that of a rural livestock farming district at high altitudes, in the Alps of Northern Italy. Alpine meadows have been exposed to profound management shifts in modern times: changes in plant species composition and biodiversity losses are widespread issues. The aim of the work was to inspect how the variability of meadows could be explainable by the environment they depend on and by the management strategies applied. We analyzed the plant species composition, biodiversity and forage value of meadows in the context and their relationships with environmental and management variables, collected among the farmers. The management variables explained a small amount of variance: only the number of cuts per year remarkably explained the plant species composition and biodiversity. The number of cattle and the field applied nitrogen only described the most intensively managed communities. The environmental variables better described the variability of responses: in particular, an increase of the Landolt Nutrient Index was associated with an increase of the forage value opposite to a decrease of the Shannon Index. The negative correlation between the two responses highlights a known dilemma referring to high altitude meadow communities, which are subjected to important environmental constraints. Some taxa as Anthriscus sylvestris, Heracleum sphondylium, Rumex acetosa and Polygonum bistorta were found to critically unbalance t
Tipologia IRIS:
Tesi di dottorato
Keywords:
agro-biodiversity; fontanili; meadows; agronomy; phytosociology; landscape ecology; connectivity; statistics; GIS
Elenco autori:
M.E. Pierik
Link alla scheda completa:
Link al Full Text: