Evaluation of Biodiversity Indices for Some Agronomical Plants in Kermanshah Province

Document Type : Scientific - Research

Authors

• ashkan asgari
• Alireza Koocheki
• Mehdi Nassiri mahallati

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

10.22067/jag.v10i2.34755

Abstract

Introduction
Agrobiodiversity has been operated as a foundation for sustaining food production systems and ecosystem services function in human societies. Biodiversity is known as a source for the environmental process and ecosystem services. Ecologists believe that increasing the species richness in farms is the cause of ecological stability in crops. Many studies have been done in relation with the importance of crop diversity. Most of them stated that crop diversity is one the main key to form ecosystem services in ecological ecosystem. Economically, polyculture can reduce production risk. Furthermore, crop diversity can lead to increase productivity by several procedures such as pest control and soil fertility. Eventually, crop diversity brings economic stability. The purpose of this study, was to calculate crop diversity using the biodiversity indices in Kermanshah province.
Materials and Methods
Kermanshah province is located in west of Iran with latitude of 33 to 35 and longitude of 45 to 47 and covers 2.5 million hectares. Crop data includes planting area in 13 cities during 1999 and 2010. Thirteen cities in the area were evaluated in the study, including Eslamabad, Paweh, Jawanroud, Dalahu, Ravansar, Sarpol-e Zahab, Sonqor, Sahneh, Qasr-e Shirin, Kermanshah, Kangawar, Gilan-e Gharb, Harsin. Crop data was obtained from ministry of agriculture. In order to quantify crop diversity, Species richness, Shannon, Simpson, Simpson evenness and Sorenson similarity, indices were calculated. We used the planting area of varoiuse crops to calculate the indices. The Ecological Methodology software was applied to calculate mentioned indices.
Results and Discussion
According to our study, 19 crop species was planted in study area. Wheat was highest planted crop followed by wheat, chickpea, barley and corn so that 51% of planted area was devoted to wheat and 33% was devoted to chickpea. All the 19 crop species was classified into eight families. Leguminos, Poaceae and Solanaceae had highest number of species, respectively. Poaceae (71%) and Leguminos (25%) were highest in terms of planting area. The results of present study demonstrated that 23% of crops type was planted as irrigated and 77% as dry farming. Moreover, 14 species were categorized as summer crops and five species as winter crops. Species richness was 19 across the province. Species richness in Sahneh (19 species), Kermanshah (17 species) and Sarpol Zahab (17 species) were highest. A big difference was obtained between Species richness in irrigated lands (19) and drylands (8), irrigated lands was more that drylands. It may be as result of water availability in irrigated lands. Shannon index was acquired 1.92 in Kermanshah province and highest value was obtained in irrigated land of Pave (2.56) and followed by Sahneh (2.52) and Harsin (2.48). Shannon index in irrigated lands (2.51) was more than drylands (1.48). These findings may attribute to water availability; the crops such as sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) , potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) , cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) , alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), canola (Brassica napus L.) and paddy would plant if water is available for irrigation. Among the cities, highest Simpson evenness was belonged to dry lands of Ravansar (0.92) and Kermanshah (0.7). It implied that there is no dominant crop in these area or crops are uniformly distributed across the area. However, in other cities wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is dominated; so, evenness is low. Shannon index was highest for kitchen garden and it was around 2.1 followed by cereals (1.07), forage (0.97), industrial crops (1.33) and beans (0.18). Finally, correlation between Shannon and Simpson indices (0.78**) and species richness and evenness (-0.85**) were calculated.
Conclusion
Wheat and chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) are the most popular crops and are cultivated in Kermanshah province (west of Iran), however, these plants are dominance than others. Cultivate monoculture systems in the province has increased the vulnerability of agricultural systems and for the low diversity, the risk of pests, diseases, and weeds are high than diverse systems.

Keywords

• Evenness index
• Shannon index
• Sorenson index
• Species richness

20.1001.1.20087713.1397.10.2.4.4

---

References

Abebe, T. 2013. Determinants of crop diversity and composition in Enset-Coffee agroforestry homegardens of Southern Ethiopia. Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics 114: 29-38.

Asrat, S., Yesuf, M., Carlsson, F., and Wale, E. 2010. Farmers’ preferences for crop variety traits: lessons for on-farm conservation and technology adoption. Ecological Economics 15: 2394-2401.

Baumgärtner, S., and Quaas, M.F. 2010. Managing increasing environmental risks through agro-biodiversity and agri-environmental policies. Agricultural Economics 41: 483-496.

Borrvall, C., Ebenman, B., and Jonsson, T. 2000. Biodiversity lessens the risk of cascading extinction in model food webs. Ecology Letters 3: 131-136.

Boyce, R.L., and Ellison, P.C. 2001. Choosing the best similarity index when performing fuzzy set ordination on binary data. Journal of Vegetation Science 12: 711-720.

Butturi, D., Junior, M.P., Giacomini, H., and Junior, P.M. 2014. Computer intensive methods for controlling bias in a generalized species diversity index. Ecological Indicators 37: 90-98.

Chapin, F.S., Zavaleta, E.S., Eviner, V.T., Naylor, R.L., Vitousek, P.M., Reynolds, H.L., Hooper, D.U., Lavorel, S., Sala, O.E., Hobbie, S.E., Mack, M.C., and Diaz, S. 2000. Con-sequences of changing biodiversity. Nature 405: 234-242.

Chiarucci, A., Bacaro, G., and Scheiner, S.M. 2011. Old and new challenges in using species diversity for assessing biodiversity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Biological Sciences 366: 2426-2437.

Di Falco, S., and Chavas, J.P. 2009. On crop biodiversity, risk exposure and food security in the highlands of Ethiopia. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91: 600-611.

Di Falco, S., and Perrings, C. 2005. Crop biodiversity, risk management and the implications of agricultural assistance. Ecological Economics 55: 459-466.

Di Falco, S., Bezabih, M., and Yesuf, M. 2010.Seeds for livelihood: crop biodiversity and food production in Ethiopia. Ecological Economics 15: 1695-1702.

Gauthier, O., Sarrazin, J., and Desbruye`res, D. 2010. Measure and mis-measure of species diversity in deep-sea chemosynthetic communities. Marine Ecology Progress Series 402: 285–302.

Ghalegolab Behbahani, A., Khoshbakht, K., Tabrizi, L., and Davari, A. 2013. A comparative assessment of Agrobiodiversity indices in farms, gardens and home gardens (Case study: of Jajrood basin). Journal of Agroecology 5(2): 161-168. (In Persian with English Summary)

Gotelli, N.J., and Colwell, R.K. 2011. Estimating Species Richness. In: Magurran, A.E., McGill, B.J. (Eds.), Frontiers in Measuring Biodiversity. Oxford University Press, New York, NY p. 39-54.

Hooper, D.U., Adair, E.C., Cardinale, B.J., Byrnes, J.E.K., Hungate, B.A., Matulich, K.L., Gonzalez, A., Duffy, J.E., Gamfeldt, L., and O’Connor, M.I. 2012. A global synthesis reveals biodiversity loss as a major driver of ecosystem change. Nature 486: U105-U129.

Koocheki, A., Nassiri Mahallati, M., Asghaipoor, M.R., and Khodashenas, A. 2004. Biodiversity of fruits and vegetables in Iran. Journal of Iranian Field Crops Research 2: 79-87. (In Persian with English Summary)

Koocheki, A., Nassiri Mahallati, M., Jahanbin, and Zarae, A. 2004. Diversity of cultivars in Iran. Desert 9: 49-67. (In Persian with English Summary)

Koocheki, A., Nassiri Mahallati, M., Zarea Fizabadi, A., and Jahanbib, G. 2004. Diversity of cropping system in Iran. Pajouhesh and Sazandegi 63: 70-83. (In Persian with English Summary)

Loreau, M., and Hector, A. 2001. Partitioning selection and complementarity in biodiversity experiments. Nature 412: 72-76.

Magurran, A.E. 2004. Measuring Biological Diversity. Blackwell Science, Oxford. UK. 256p.

Margalef, R. 1958. Information theory in ecology. General Systems 3: 36-71.

Michalcova, D., Gilbert, J.C., Lawson, C.S., Gowing, D.J.G., and Marrs, R.H. 2011. The combined effect of waterlogging, extractable P and soil pH on diversity: a case study on mesotrophic grasslands in the UK. Plant Ecology 212: 879-888.

Nagendra, H. 2002. Opposite trends in response for the shannon and simpson indices of landscape diversity. Applied Geography 22: 175-186.

Nassiri Mahallati, M., Koocheki, A., and Mazaheri, D. 2005. Diversity of crop species in Iran. Desert 10: 33-50. (In Persian with English Summary)

Petchey, O.L., McPhearson, P.T., Casey, T.M., and Morin, P.J. 1999. Environmental warming alters food-web structure and ecosystem function. Nature 402: 69-72.

Reitalu, T., Purschke, O., Johansson, L.J., Hall, K., Sykes, M.T., and Prentice, H.C. 2012. Responses of grassland species richness to local and landscape factors depend on spatial scale and habitat specialization. Journal of Vegetation Science 23: 41-51.

Seaby, R.M.H., and Henderson, P.A. 2007. Measuring and understanding biodiversity. Publisher Pisces Conservation p. 132.

Shannon, C.E. 1948. A mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal 27: 379-423.

Simpson, E.G. 1949. Measurement of diversity. Nature 163: 688-689.

Tilman, D., Wedin, D., and Knops, J. 1996. Productivity and sustainability influenced by biodiversity in grassland ecosystems. Nature 379: 718-720.

Wood, D., and Lenne, J.M. 1999. Agrobiodiversity: Characterization, Utilization and Management. (Eds.), CABI, Wallingford.