About this Research Topic

Background

Maintaining and managing agrobiodiversity is a key issue proposed by agroecology, not only to maintain high agricultural productivity, but also to increase the resilience, stability and sustainability of the agroecosystems, meant as the functional relationship between the natural assets and the human use of them, at farm and farm matrix scale.

The main hypothesis of this approach is that, the greater the interactions between organisms of different trophic levels (edaphic organisms, multiple crops, weed plants, herbivores, carnivores, plants in living fences, corridors or forest patches within agroecosystems), the greater will be the possibilities of obtaining abundant and varied harvests, with fewer external inputs (pesticides, fertilizers) and better environmental performance. The agrobiodiversity is meant as the variety and the disposition of the cultivations, pastures, farms, that affect the soil properties and create habitat diversity, landscape diversity and connectivity.
At the level of landscapes or territories, the set of biodiverse agroecosystems generate natural matrices that have a powerful impact on the recovery and restoration of forest corridors, which, in turn, positively influence many ecosystem services for nature conservation and free movement and recovery of many populations of animal species, including those in danger of extinction.
Ecological connectivity, a topic of special concern for conservation biology, is also positively affected by these biodiverse agroecosystems. In this sense, agroecology offers different tools to approach the landscape, expressed, for example, in the measurement of the main agroecological structure of the farms, which has been positioned as a form of dialogue with the ecology of the landscape. This dialogue between sciences gives ecological connectivity a complementary focus, because it makes peasants and farmers visible as the main actors of the territory.

On the other hand, the greater agrobiodiversity, the greater the possibilities of obtaining sustainable food systems, because the greater supply of plants and animals on farms provides high possibilities of increasing food security and sovereignty and significantly reducing risk elements. for the health of humans and non-humans. Despite the advantages offered by agrobiodiverse farms, managed with agroecological criteria, there are few publications that offer a general overview of their potential (and even their application difficulties) in different parts of the world. One thing are the conditions of biodiversity in equatorial or tropical zones and another, very different, in the temperate zones of the planet. Knowledge about agrobiodiversity management generally rests with local communities, who know the value of their plant and animal species, not only for economic production but also as elements of resilience, stability and resistance to different disturbances.

This Research Topic provides an opportunity to publish works in this line, under a holistic view, including ecosystem and cultural aspects (symbolic, economic, political, social and technological), which have been carried out in any region of the rural world.
Papers, research or studies are expected around the following main themes:

• Methodologies to measure the structure and function of agroecosystems, in terms of their agrobiodiversity.
• Economic, social or ecosystem benefits of agrobiodiversity.
• Relationships between agrobiodiversity and production systems.
• Policy challenges in promoting agrobiodiversity.
• Differences in the way agrobiodiversity is managed in tropical or temperate regions,
• Community participation, local knowledge and benefits of agrobiodiversity,
• Managing agrobiodiversity at multiple spatial scales. Remote sensing and agrobiodiversity studies.

Keywords: Farming, Biodiversity, Connectivity, Landscape, Rural Community

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