DIVERSITAS agroBIODIVERSITY network

 Biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes is the theme of the DIVERSITAS agroBIODIVERSITY network (http://www.agrobiodiversity-diversitas.org/).  There are about a dozen people in the core group of this international network, but many more are involved in our workshops and conferences. Louise Jackson and Lijbert Brussaard (Wageningen University) are co-chairs of the network, and Mirjam Pulleman (Wageningen University)  runs the agroBIODIVERSITY International Project Office of DIVERSITAS.

Our current focus is integrative approaches and tools for quantifying biodiversity, ecosystem services, and social contexts for development of sustainable land use practices. The goal is to combine ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom up’ approaches, so that research on landscape processes is combined with mechanistic understanding of localized ecosystem functions. Conceptual models on productivity/biodiversity/livelihoods relationships are being developed within a set of international sites where scientists have joined local stakeholders in innovation toward biodiversity-friendly sustainable agriculture, based on concerns about current trends toward agricultural intensification and degradation of environmental quality. This involves an ecosystem approach in which biophysical (e.g., ecology, soil science) and social sciences (e.g., economics, anthropology) together provide understanding of the ways that agrobiodiversity contributes to multifunctionality across agricultural landscapes. Recent publications include:

Pascual, U., L.E. Jackson, and A. Drucker. Economics of agrobiodiversity. In press, Encyclopedia of Biodiversity. Elsevier Inc.

Jackson, L.E., M.M. Pulleman, L. Brussaard, K.S. Bawa, G.G. Brown, I.M. Cardoso, P.C. de Ruiter, L. García-Barrios, A.D. Hollander, P. Lavelle, E. Ouédraogo, U. Pascual, S. Setty, S.M. Smukler, T. Tscharntke, and M. van Noordwijk. 2012. Social-ecological and regional adaptation of agrobiodiversity management across a global set of research regions. Global Environmental Change 22:623-639. Jackson et al, Adaptation of agrobiodiversity, 2012

Tscharntke, T., Y. Clough, L.E. Jackson, I. Motzke, I. Perfecto, J. Vandermeer, T.C. Wanger, and A. Whitbread. 2012. Global food security, biodiversity conservation and the future of agricultural intensification. Biological Conservation 151:53-59. Tscharntke et al, Global food security, 2012