Multiple Ecosystem Services in Smallholder Agriculture
Author | : Jason Sircely |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : |
Release | : 2012 |
Genre | : |
ISBN | : |
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Recent research into the ecological origins and social implications of ecosystem services, the benefits ecosystems provide to society, is predicated on the downward trends observed for many services. Current work increasingly emphasizes how interactions among ecosystem services (synergies and trade-offs) affect the delivery of multiple services, from soil fertility at field scales to watershed-scale hydrological function, to global climate regulation. Meanwhile, research on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning has identified substantive linkages between the biodiversity of ecosystems and the services they provide, provoking interest in aligning biodiversity conservation with the sustained delivery of ecosystem services. To better understand the delivery of multiple ecosystem services relevant to smallholder farmer livelihoods in the tropics, the production of wood and livestock forage and the structure and fertility of soils were examined in grazed and improved fallows in western Kenya.