Study shows why it is beneficial to preserve native forest around agricultural areas

While studying a region of vineyards in the interior of the state of São Paulo, researchers observed that the most preserved sites had a greater diversity of birds and the ecological functions they perform.

Agência FAPESP* – Greater environmental diversity leads to an increase in bird diversity in agricultural landscapes. This is one of the main conclusions of a study carried out in vineyards in the municipality of São Miguel Arcanjo, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, with the support of FAPESP.

The region is one of the largest producers of the fruit, grown mainly by small farmers, and is close to the largest Atlantic Rainforest massif in the country, the Paranapiacaba Ecological Continuum.

Areas of contiguous forest such as these can support several species of birds with different ecological characteristics, providing a greater variety of ecosystem functions in the environment. This means that when a species is lost, the functions it performs are also lost.

“The way in which environmental changes and forest fragmentation affect species and their ecosystem functions is one of the main questions that researchers have been trying to understand in recent decades,” says Professor Augusto Piratelli of the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), who supervised the research. “Only with very well-designed studies and excellent data collection will we be able to answer these questions.”

In addition to UFSCar, scientists from São Paulo State University (UNESP) and the University of São Paulo (USP) participated in the study. The group received funding from FAPESP through eight projects (13/50421-2; 20/01779-5; 21/06668-0; 21/08322-3; 21/08534-0; 21/10195-0; 21/10639-5; 22/10760-1). The results have been published in the journal Biotropica.

Methodology

To carry out the research, 19 sites were chosen in agricultural landscapes with vineyards in São Miguel Arcanjo, near Sorocaba. The sites were carefully chosen to ensure that there was a variation of natural and human-modified landscapes.

Using predefined metrics, the percentage of forest within each study area was analyzed to assess the degree of conservation. “Understanding how the quantity of natural and anthropogenic environments and the variation in these quantities influence species and their functions in agroecosystems could allow us to define much more efficient conservation and management strategies,” says Daniele Moreno, first author of the article.

For the researchers, it is important to understand which birds are found in vineyards and what functions they perform in these agricultural systems. According to Piratelli, “each species plays different roles in agricultural crops and, most likely, landscapes with more forests and a greater diversity of environments should maintain more functions. We’ve gone beyond simply recording the species that occur in the environments and are now quantifying their contributions to maintaining ecological services and functions.”

Diversify landscapes, preserve native vegetation

The authors emphasize the importance of preserving native forests in these agricultural areas to maintain biodiversity around vineyards. In addition, “the study highlights the importance of considering both taxonomic and functional diversity when assessing the impacts of landscape changes on the ecological functions performed by birds,” says Milton Ribeiro, professor at UNESP in Rio Claro and co-author of the study.

This information can help develop public policies that balance agricultural production with biodiversity conservation in rural areas. “Overall, this study emphasizes the importance of understanding the complex relationships between landscape heterogeneity, biodiversity and ecological functions in agroecosystems in order to promote sustainable land use practices that benefit farmers and the environment,” concludes Ribeiro.

The article “Landscape heterogeneity increases bird functional diversity within Neotropical vineyards” can be read at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/btp.13328.

* With information from UNESP's Laboratory of Spatial Ecology and Conservation (LEEC).