Biodiversity Lecture 2- Becky

Question 1

What actions can help us to balance supply and demand in the food system?

Answer 1

1. increase in supply,
2. Moderate demand
3. Improve governance

Question 2

what is biodiversity?

Answer 2

The variability among living organisms from all sources including inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic systems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.

Question 3

what are the three levels of biodiversity?

Answer 3

• Genetic
  
  • Organismal
  • Ecological

Question 4

name some ecosystem services essential for agriculture (agroecosytem services)

Answer 4

Pollination,
biological pest control,
maintenance of soil structure and fertility, nutrient cycling
hydrological services

Pollination worth ~£430 million in UK annually (NEA 2007)

Question 5

name some ecosystem services provided by agriculture (agroecosytem services)

Answer 5

Regulation of soil and water quality,
carbon sequestration,
support for biodiversity
pesr control
nutrient cycling

Question 6

what id the aim of agroecosystem services?

Answer 6

Aim is to maximise ecosystem services and minimise disservices

Question 7

ecosystem disservices of agroecosystem?

Answer 7

loss of wildlife habitat,
nutrient runoff,
GHG emission,
pesticide poisoning
sedimentation of waterways

Question 8

what are the provisioning services of agroecosystems?

Answer 8

food
fibre
bioenergy

Question 9

what methods of farm management can be used to support agroecosystems?

Answer 9

tilage
crop diversity
field sixe
crop rotation
cover cropping

Question 10

what landscape management strategies can be used to support the landscape matrix?

Answer 10

windbreaks
hedgerows
riparian vegetation
natural habitat patches

Question 11

why is modern farming generally bad for biodiversity?

Answer 11

Accelerated soil erosion
Habitat change and management – e.g. loss of hedgerows in UK
Farm waste – fertilisers, pesticides, organic waste

Other negative impacts:
Increased resistance to pesticides
BSE, Foot and Mouth, Salmonella etc.

Question 12

name aims of increasing food production which can also conflict with biodiversity…

Answer 12

^land for food= loss of natural habitat
^ intenstification of agri= increased habitat fragmentation
^ increased input= pollution
^ increased pressure form other land uses= invasive species, increased roads

Question 13

what is responsible for the majority of global land use?

Answer 13

agricultural production

Question 14

what are the 5 stages of land-use transitions starting with pre- settlement

Answer 14

pre-settlement
frontier
subsitence
intensifying
intensive

Question 15

how much farmland is already degraded?

Answer 15

1/3

Question 16

name the order in which fragmentation can lead to habitat loss…

Answer 16

continuous forest
partially fragmented
fragmented and edge effects
fragmented at equilibrium

Question 17

what is land sparing?

Answer 17

Separate land for nature from land for farming

Make farmland higher yielding (and therefore often less biodiverse)

creates homogenous landscapes

Protect other land for:
Biodiversity
Ecosystem services

Question 18

what is land sharing?

Answer 18

Same land for biodiversity conservation and food production

Agricultural land is less high yielding, but more biodiverse

More farmland might be needed to produce a given amount of food

Less land is available solely for nature conservation

e.g. agroforestry

Question 19

which is better land sharing or sparing?

Answer 19

winners and losers in both- so species dependent.
in some experiments, sharing benefitted more species

Question 20

caveats of studies on land sharing and sparing?

Answer 20

Limited number of taxa, sites and habitat types
Correlational data
Population densities may be influenced by adjoining habitats
Extinction debts from recent land conversion
For land sparing to work there must be appropriate governance mechanisms

Question 21

what is a major downfall of land sharing vs sparing?

Answer 21

fails to account for real world complexity

Question 22

how does optimising land use work?

Answer 22

by intensifying agriculture in areas where it will cause least biodiversity loss) can reduce projected biodiversity loss by up to 88%

Question 23

what are the 3 main limitations of land -sparing?

Answer 23

emphasises food production not food security
- assumes that ‘spared’ land will be used to establish protected areas but this is rarely the case
oversimplifies the debate into production vs. biodiversity

Question 24

what could be the new conceptual framwork of farming?

Answer 24

Four archetypes of social-ecological system states corresponding to
win–win (e.g. agroecology)
win–lose (e.g. intensive agriculture)
lose–win (e.g. fortress conservation)
lose–lose (e.g. degraded landscapes) outcomes