Landscape heterogeneity of peasant-managed agricultural matrices

Abstract

In agricultural landscapes, management practices and other environmental and social factors shape complex agroecological matrices. In turn, the structure of such matrices impacts both agricultural activities and biodiversity conservation, for instance, by mediating wildlife migration between agricultural and habitat patches. One way to characterize a matrix, its potential role in biodiversity conservation, and how its descriptors change across different spatial scales, is characterizing heterogeneity metrics and systematically examining how such metrics change with grain size and landscape extent. However, these methods have rarely been applied to tropical, peasant-managed landscapes, even though this type of landscape occupies most of the agricultural surface in or near biodiversity hotspots. We focus on a peasant-managed agricultural landscape in Oaxaca, Mexico, for which we mapped and quantified the land-use classes and evaluated heterogeneity metrics. We also examined the response of heterogeneity metrics to changes in grain and extent scales. This allowed us to further understand the structure and conservation potential of the agroecological matrix in this type of landscape, to broadly compare this landscape with other agricultural landscapes in North America, and to recommend specific landscape metrics for different types of studies involving agricultural matrices. We conclude that this type of agricultural matrix is ideal to pursue joint agricultural and conservation strategies in an integrated landscape.

Linking coleopteran diversity with agricultural management of maize agroecosystems in Oaxaca, Mexico

“…In particular, curculionids maintained a good correlation with overall coleopteran biodiversity, as well as with management intensification. In another work in Zaachila (Urrutia et al 2019), we showed that agricultural patches, specially rainfed-agriculture patches, dominate this rural landscape and that, given their atomized pattern and large connectivity, they play a central role in the potential migration and recolonization among the adjacent forest patches. Together, these two studies suggest that traditional agriculture being practiced in the agricultural patches of Zaachila would render a high quality matrix for biodiversity conservation.…”

“…It is a semi-urban population located 17 km southeast of the state's capital. The most represented land use types are agriculture, which covers 48 % of its total area, secondary forest with 23 % and urban zones with 19 % (Urrutia at al. 2019).…”

“…During september 2016 we worked with a group of peasants with whom we had built a trusting relationship since two years earlier due to previous activities in the area (Benítez & Jardón-Barbolla 2015;Mora 2017;Urrutia et al 2019). Together, we set to find plots belonging to two qualitatively different management types.…”

Coastal Landscape Vulnerability Analysis in Eastern China—Based on Land-Use Change in Jiangsu Province

“…(2) LAI refers to the ability of the landscape to adapt and self-recover under external disturbances, which consists of plaque rich density index (PRD) [24], Shannon diversity index (SHDI) [25], and Shannon uniformity index (SHEI) [25]. Combined with the detailed introduction of the three indices in the references, the specific calculation process can be completed in ArcGIS10.5.…”

Data_Sheet_1.docx

“…In this work, we sampled the beetle community in plots belonging to a highly heterogeneous, peasant-driven agricultural landscape (Urrutia et al, 2020). We worked in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico, a region recognized for its extraordinary biological and cultural diversity, and that is in many ways representative of small-scale agriculture landscapes in southern Mexico (Mora Van Cauwelaert, 2017;Ramos, 2020;Urrutia et al, 2020).…”