scholarly journals Diversity of soil macroarthropods in shifting cultivation and forest ecosystem of Mizoram, Northeast India

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 601-611
Author(s):  
Betsy Zodinpuii ◽  
Lalnuntluanga ◽  
H Lalthanzara
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Forest Ecosystem ◽  
Shifting Cultivation ◽  
Diversity Index ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Soil Arthropods ◽  
Soil Organisms ◽  
Cultivation System ◽  
Agricultural Ecosystems ◽  
The Impact

Soil organisms are an integral part of agricultural ecosystems and are essential for the maintenance of healthy productive soils. Little is known about soil arthropods assemblages in shifting cultivation system. Therefore, we compared the diversity of soil macroarthropods in shifting cultivation (EXPTL) system and its adjacent natural forest (CTRL) ecosystem in Mizoram, northeast India and assessed the impact of shifting cultivation on the diversity. The study was conducted from 2013 to 2015, and the period was divided as pre-cultivation, cultivation and post-cultivation phases. Traditional shifting cultivation was practised in EXPTL site in the year 2014. Sampling was done by handpicking and digging from a quadrat (25×25×30 cm) located at least 10 m apart at monthly intervals. Specimens were preserved in 4% formalin and were identified up to the lowest possible taxa. A total of 97 taxa of arthropods belonging to five classes were recorded. 88 taxa and 48 taxa were recorded in CTRL and EXPTL respectively. Order-wise Shannon diversity index was significantly higher (p < .001) in CTRL as compared to EXPTL site. There were significant differences in both cultivation (p <.001) and post-cultivation (p <.001) phases between CTRL and EXPTL sites. There was a significant effect of shifting cultivation on the diversity of soil macroarthropods at the p <.05 level for the three cultivation phases in EXPTL site. Therefore, it was concluded that shifting cultivation system negatively affected soil macroarthropod diversity at least for a short duration. This study provided the first baseline data of soil macroarthropod diversity and its interaction with land-use system from Mizoram, northeast India.

IMPACT OF WEEDS ON DIVERSITY OF SOIL ARTHROPODS IN Bt COTTON FIELD IN FAISALABAD PAKISTAN

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-129
Author(s):  
Iqra Munir ◽  
Abdul Ghaffar ◽  
Asad Aalam ◽  
Muhammad Khuram Shahzad ◽  
Muhammad Jafir
Keyword(s):  
Diversity Index ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Cotton Field ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Bt Cotton ◽  
Soil Arthropods ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact ◽  
High Diversity

The present study was conducted to check the impact of weeds on diversity of soil arthropods in Bt cotton field by using RCBD design with four treatments and three replications at Research Area of Department of Entomology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad. Treatments were consisted of different combination of weeds and control group Total 228 samples were collected and from these samples 14 different taxons of soil arthropods were reported and from these taxons, mites showed high diversity index. Maximum diversity of soil arthropods was recorded (H´=2.07) from itsit + sawanki and minimum diversity of soil arthropods was recorded (H´=1.90) from itsit + chulai. Maximum mean richness of soil arthropods ( S=3.18±0.24) was reported from Itsit+chulai, while minimum mean richness of soil arthropods (S=3±0.23) was reported from Control group. Maximum mean abundance of soil arthropods (14.7±4.11) was reported from Itsit+sawanki while minimum mean abundance of soil arthropods (11.5±2.26) was reported from control group.

scholarly journals Farms or Forests? Understanding and Mapping Shifting Cultivation Using the Case Study of West Garo Hills, India

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurien ◽  
Lele ◽  
Nagendra
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
State Government ◽  
Shifting Cultivation ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Tree Plantations ◽  
Old Growth Forest ◽  
Forest Survey ◽  
Garo Hills ◽  
Government Statistics

Attempts to study shifting cultivation landscapes are fundamentally impeded by the difficulty in mapping and distinguishing shifting cultivation, settled farms and forests. There are foundational challenges in defining shifting cultivation and its constituent land-covers and land-uses, conceptualizing a suitable mapping framework, and identifying consequent methodological specifications. Our objective is to present a rigorous methodological framework and mapping protocol, couple it with extensive fieldwork and use them to undertake a two-season Landsat image analysis to map the forest-agriculture frontier of West Garo Hills district, Meghalaya, in Northeast India. We achieve an overall accuracy of ~80% and find that shifting cultivation is the most extensive land-use, followed by tree plantations and old-growth forest confined to only a few locations. We have also found that commercial plantation extent is positively correlated with shortened fallow periods and high land-use intensities. Our findings are in sharp contrast to various official reports and studies, including from the Forest Survey of India, the Wastelands Atlas of India and state government statistics that show the landscape as primarily forested with only small fractions under shifting cultivation, a consequence of the lack of clear definitions and poor understanding of what constitutes shifting cultivation and forest. Our results call for an attentive revision of India’s official land-use mapping protocols, and have wider significance for remote sensing-based mapping in other shifting cultivation landscapes.

scholarly journals Diversity of Soil Dwelling Collembola in a Forest, Vegetable and Tea Ecosystems of Assam, India

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12628
Author(s):  
Sudhansu Bhagawati ◽  
Badal Bhattacharyya ◽  
Binoy K. Medhi ◽  
Snigdha Bhattacharjee ◽  
Himangshu Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Forest Ecosystem ◽  
Landscape Planning ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Organic Carbon Content ◽  
Land Uses ◽  
Edaphic Factors ◽  
Land Use Pattern ◽  
Seasonal Diversity ◽  
The Impact

Land use change has a great impact in determining the diversity patterns of soil fauna. Adoption of any land use pattern significantly affects the soil structure and its physico-chemical characteristics, which often leads to the loss of biodiversity. Considering the collembolans as the key organism in the indicator shopping basket of soil environment, the response of Collembola communities under three different land uses represented by forest, vegetable and tea ecosystems was studied. Collembolans were sampled at monthly intervals using Tullgren funnel and identified by standard taxonomic keys. Diversity analysis and soil chemo-edaphic factors were studied to establish the impact of different land uses on Collembola communities. Five genera of Collembola viz., Cyphoderus, Entomobrya, Isotoma, Folsomia and Hypogastrura were recorded from the forest ecosystem whereas Folsomia was completely absent in vegetable ecosystem and the tea ecosystem soil was devoid of both Folsomia and Hypogastrura. Seasonal diversity and density of Collembola were recorded to be higher in the forest ecosystem indicating the presence of relatively stable habitats as compared to vegetable and tea ecosystems showing relatively disturbed habitats. Correlation studies between different chemo-edaphic factors and collembolan population revealed that the moisture and organic carbon content of soil had significant positive correlation during all the four seasons in all the ecosystems studied. Higher adoption of mechanical and chemo-centric agriculture depletes the available resources of the soil and makes it less habitable and conducive for the growth and sustenance of collembolans in vegetable and tea ecosystem as compared to forest. Appropriate landscape planning, land management strategies and developing proper methods of land use practices may pave the way for the improvement of collembolan diversity at landscape level.

scholarly journals Assesment of the Impact of Habitat Conditions and Land Use on the Floristic Diversity of Selected Rush Communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-181
Author(s):  
Mieczysław Grzelak ◽  
Eliza Gaweł ◽  
Leszek Majchrzak
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Diversity Index ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Habitat Diversity ◽  
Floristic Diversity ◽  
Habitat Conditions ◽  
Habitat Mosaic ◽  
River Valleys ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Diverse Plant

Abstract This study concerned the assessment of the effect of various habitat conditions and land use on the habitat diversity of rush communities classified as Phragmitetea. The investigations were conducted in the years 2015-2019 in an area particularly interesting in terms of its nature value and abundant in localities of diverse plant communities, located in ecological areas of permanent grassland in the river valleys of the Noteć Leniwa and the Noteć Bystra, as well as the interlevee floodplain of the Warta in the area of Rakowo. The study area covered 228 ha. Soil moisture content resulting from the habitat mosaic and intensity of land use had a significant effect on the formation of rush communities, their richness and floristic diversity as well as nature and agricultural value. Most communities of nature value were characterised by a mediocre economic value and low fodder value (FVS ranging from 1.1 to 6.9), while some were barren lands. The calculated floristic diversity index (H’) varied and ranged from 1.9 to 3.5, while the harvested dry matter yields ranged from 2.7 to 16.6 t.ha−1. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of habitat conditions and land use on the formation and diversity of rush communities in the Noteć and the Warta river valleys.

scholarly journals Exploring trajectories of shifting-cultivation landscapes through games the case of Assam, India.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.P.M. Bos ◽  
T. Cornioley ◽  
A. Dray ◽  
P.O. Waeber ◽  
C.A. Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Shifting Cultivation ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Cultivation System ◽  
Modelling Framework ◽  
Role Playing Game ◽  
Plantation Crops

Abstract Understanding landscape change starts with understanding what motivates farmers to transition away from one system, shifting cultivation, into another, like plantation crops, given that they often have limited labour and money available. In this study we explored the resource allocation strategies of the farmers of the Karbi tribe in Northeast India, who practise a traditional shifting cultivation system called jhum. Through Companion Modelling, a participatory modelling framework, we developed a model of the local farming system in the form of a role playing game. Within this environment local jhum farmers participated in a simulation that covered 18 years of farming, while also allowing us to analyse the impacts of their decisions together. In the game, farmers allocated labour and cash to meet household needs, while also investing in new opportunities like bamboo, rubber and tea, or the chance to improve their living standards. When given new opportunities, the farmers were eager to embrace those options where investment costs, especially monetary investments, are low. Returns on these investments were not automatically re-invested in further long-term, more expensive and promising opportunities. Instead, most of the money is spend on improving the household living standards, and especially on the education of the next generation. The landscape changed profoundly as a result of the farmer strategies. Natural ecological succession was replaced by an improved fallow of marketable bamboo species. Plantations of tea and rubber became more prevalent as time progressed. However, old practises that ensure food security are not yet given up.

scholarly journals Contextualizing Landscape-Scale Forest Cover Loss in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 2000 and 2015

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Molinario ◽  
Matthew Hansen ◽  
Peter Potapov ◽  
Alexandra Tyukavina ◽  
Stephen Stehman
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Shifting Cultivation ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Forest Clearing ◽  
New Forest ◽  
The Impact

Shifting cultivation has been shown to be the primary cause of land use change in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Traditionally, forested and fallow land are rotated in a slash and burn cycle that has created an agricultural mosaic, including secondary forest, known as the rural complex. This study investigates the land use context of new forest clearing (during 2000–2015) in primary forest areas outside of the established rural complex. These new forest clearings occur as either rural complex expansion (RCE) or isolated forest perforations (IFP), with consequent implications on the forest ecosystem and biodiversity habitat. During 2000–2015, subsistence agriculture was the dominant driver of forest clearing for both extension of settled areas and pioneer clearings removed from settled areas. Less than 1% of clearing was directly attributable to land uses such as mining, plantations, and logging, showing that the impact of commercial operations in the DRC is currently dwarfed by a reliance on small-holder shifting cultivation. However, analyzing the landscape context showed that large-scale agroindustry and resource extraction activities lead to increased forest loss and degradation beyond their previously-understood footprints. The worker populations drawn to these areas create communities that rely on shifting cultivation and non-timber forest products (NTFP) for food, energy, and building materials. An estimated 12% of forest loss within the RCE and 9% of the area of IFP was found to be within 5 km of mines, logging, or plantations. Given increasing demographic and commercial pressures on DRC’s forests, it will be crucial to factor in this landscape-level land use change dynamic in land use planning and sustainability-focused governance.

scholarly journals Changing Landscapes Forest: Implications for its Conservation

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
James Rodríguez-Echeverry ◽  
Rodrigo Fuentes ◽  
Margareth Leiton ◽  
Edilia Jaque
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Spatial Pattern ◽  
Exotic Species ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Forest Ecosystem ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Native Forest ◽  
Forest Landscape ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe forest landscape of southern Chile, which includes Chilean temperate forest ecosystem, has been designated as a hotspot for biodiversity conservation. However, this landscape has been transformed by land-use change. A proper knowledge about how land-use change impact this ecosystem would provide crucial information for planning conservation strategies. At the commune of Arauco – Chile, the impact of the land-use change on the spatial pattern of native forest ecosystem from 1990 to 2010 was evaluated at the landscape level. This evaluation was carried out using satellite images, landscape metrics and spatially explicit models. The loss of native forest ecosystem was of 40.7% (loss rate of 4.39% per year). Conversely, the exotic species plantations increased more than 150%. The number patches of native forest ecosystem increased more than 130%. The size distribution of patches (&lt;100 ha) increased more than 22%. The aggregation index of native forest ecosystem decreased from 62.5 to 40.1. The loss of native forest ecosystem was caused by the expansion of exotic species plantations, which was associated with substantial changes in the spatial pattern of the forest landscape. As a strategy for conservation of the native forest ecosystem we suggest a landscape approach, using the corridor–patch–matrix model. We recommend that this strategy be complemented with land-use planning. Moreover, this strategy must be supported by a framework of environmental policies. We also recommend strengthening the existing ecological restoration programmes and developing new programmes to restore the native forest ecosystem.

scholarly journals Exploring Livelihood Strategies of Shifting Cultivation Farmers in Assam through Games

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swen P. M. Bos ◽  
Tina Cornioley ◽  
Anne Dray ◽  
Patrick O. Waeber ◽  
Claude A. Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Shifting Cultivation ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Cultivation System ◽  
Modelling Framework ◽  
Role Playing Game ◽  
Plantation Crops

Understanding landscape change starts with understanding what motivates farmers to transition away from one system, shifting cultivation, into another, like plantation crops. Here we explored the resource allocation strategies of the farmers of the Karbi tribe in Northeast India, who practice a traditional shifting cultivation system called jhum. Through a participatory modelling framework, we co-developed a role-playing game of the local farming system. In the game, farmers allocated labour and cash to meet household needs, while also investing in new opportunities like bamboo, rubber and tea, or the chance to improve their living standards. Farmers did embrace new options where investment costs, especially monetary investments, are low. Returns on these investments were not automatically re-invested in further long-term, more expensive and promising opportunities. Instead, most of the money is spend on improving household living standards, particularly the next generation’s education. The landscape changed profoundly based on the farmers’ strategies. Natural ecological succession was replaced by an improved fallow of marketable bamboo species. Plantations of tea and rubber became more prevalent as time progressed while old practices ensuring food security were not yet given up.

scholarly journals Plant diversity of Betel Leaf Agroforestry of South Meghalaya, Northeast India

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
H. TYNSONG ◽  
B.K. TIWARI ◽  
M. DKHAR
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Diversity ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Estimation Methods ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Betel Leaf ◽  
The Impact

Tynsong H, Tiwari BK, Dkhar M. 2018. Plant diversity of Betel Leaf Agroforestry of South Meghalaya, Northeast India. Asian J For 2: 1-11. Large areas of lowland tropical forests of South Meghalaya have been converted into betel leaf agroforestry systems by the tribal people living in the area. The betel leaf agroforestry with diverse and structurally complex shade canopies conserve a significant portion of the original forest biodiversity. The impact of land use change on the biodiversity was studied using standard vegetation analysis and biodiversity estimation methods. A total of 160 plant species were recorded in natural forests out of which 75 were trees, 40 shrubs, and 45 herbs, while in betel leaf agroforestry, a total of 159 plant species, 94 trees, 17 shrubs and 48 herbs were recorded. A total of 34 tree species, 13 shrub species, and 14 herb species were common in both the land uses. All the plant species were native species. The study revealed that the conversion of natural forest to betel leaf agroforestry in South Meghalaya has no significant impact on tree and herb diversity. However, the basal area and density are affected to some extent. The land use change has also affected the density and diversity of shrubs. The study concludes that betel leaf agroforestry in South Meghalaya developed by the indigenous War Khasi tribe through experiential learning over several generations has emerged as a fairly sustainable agroforestry system causing minimal impact on plant diversity.

scholarly journals The impacts of shifting cultivation on tropical forest soil: a review

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 693-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Antunes Ribeiro Filho ◽  
Cristina Adams ◽  
Rui Sergio Sereni Murrieta
Keyword(s):  
Shifting Cultivation ◽  
Tropical Soils ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Agricultural Practice ◽  
Phase Conversion ◽  
Cultivation System ◽  
Physical Chemical ◽  
Tropical Forest Soil ◽  
Shifting Cultivators ◽  
The Impact

The sustainability of shifting cultivation is presently a topic of debate in scientific and institutional communities; however, there is no current consensus. To address this debate, we performed a search of the pertinent literature that was published during the last 30 years on the impact of shifting agriculture on tropical soils. This search revealed that the nature of the impact depends on the shifting cultivation system (SCS) phase (conversion, cultivation, or fallow) and on the soil properties (physical, chemical, and biological). We also suggest soil quality indicators for evaluating this agricultural practice in tropical forests, which may be used as a basis for analyses on the tendencies of conservation and degradation of impacted soils. Future research should improve the choices of these indicators, relying mostly on practical criteria, so they can be used by shifting cultivators.

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