The Impact of Biodiversity in Sustainable Agroecosystems

摘要

As a powerful tool, biodiversity can be applied for assessing sustainability levels in agroecosystems as well as assessing both positive and negative effects of different agricultural activities and management strategies on the environment. It is the variety of life, including variation among genes, species and functional traits, which can increase the productivity of farming systems in a range of growing conditions, and also can maintain and increase soil fertility and mitigate the impact of pests and diseases. More diverse farming systems are generally more resilient in the face of perturbations, thus enhancing food security. For agriculture, biodiversity can be also expressed as planned (agricultural) and associated (para-agricultural and extra-agricultural) biodiversity, which reflect different functions of plants, animals and micro-organisms in agroecosystems. This paper introduces the categories of biodiversity in agroecosystems, assesses the functional biodiversity in sustainable agroecosystems, and prospects the significant of biodiversity in sustainable agroecosystems.