title: Biodiversity comparison between paired organic and conventional fields in Puducherry, India.
abstract: Modern intensive chemical agriculture and its expansion have caused a dramatic decline in the agro-biodiversity throughout the world. Recently, accumulating evidences indicate that organic farming is a sustainable farming system that can potentially reduce the biodiversity loss and conserve biodiversity. This chapter investigates the impacts on biodiversity in paired organic and conventional agricultural plots, to determine whether organic agriculture can deliver biodiversity benefits including enhanced ecosystem services. The study assessed a wide range of taxa through different methods-plants by quadrates; soil microbes; earthworms by counting; butterflies and dragonflies by pollard walk method; other arthropods by visual searching and pitfall traps; reptiles by hand capture method; molluscs by hand picking and dredging; amphibians-frogs by direct sighted/visual encountered and birds by direct sighting, calls and variable width line-transect method. Habitat area, composition and management on organic fields were likely to favor higher levels of biodiversity by supporting more numbers of species, dominance and abundance across most taxa. Overall organic hedgerows harbored larger biodiversity during both pre-harvest and post harvest period. Species richness, dominance and abundance of most taxa are lost after harvest in both conventional and organic fields due lack of habit, habitat and microclimate. However, the magnitude of the response varied among the taxa. Organic fields are the systems less dependent on external inputs restore and rejuvenate environment resulting in higher biodiversity that promotes higher sustainable production on a long-term basis.
authors: Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Pondicherry University, Puducherry 605014, India.
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Padmavathy
authors: Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Pondicherry University, Puducherry 605014, India.
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Poyyamoli
mesh_terms: D000663:Amphibians / Q000254:growth & development; D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D001717:Birds / Q000254:growth & development; D005308:Fertilizers; D007194:India; D007313:Insecta / Q000254:growth & development; D009835:Oligochaeta / Q000254:growth & development; D058871:Organic Agriculture / Q000379:methods*; D010944:Plants; D011156:Population Density; D012104:Reptiles / Q000254:growth & development; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D014887:Weather
chemical_list: D005308:Fertilizers