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Topic: Agroecosystem

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	Ecologically based pest management: a key pathway to achieving agroecosystem health
		Biotic constraints stressing agroecosystems are understood as imbalances; therefore the goal of the agroecological treatments is to recover balance and enhance the "immunity"of the agricultural system.
		Instead on focusing on one particular component of agroecosystem, agroecology emphasizes the interrelatedness of all agroecosystem components and the complex dynamics of ecological processes such as nutrient cycling and pest regulation (Gliessman, 1998).
		The instability of agroecosystems, which is manifested as the worsening of most insect pest problems, is increasingly linked to the expansion of crop monocultures at the expense of the natural vegetation, thereby decreasing local habitat diversity (Altieri and Letourneau, 1982).
	www.unicamp.br /fea/ortega/agroecol/ecpestma.htm (4373 words)

	Agroecology: principles and strategies for designing sustainable farming systems.
		Agroecosystems are communities of plants and animals interacting with their physical and chemical environments that have been modified by people to produce food, fibre, fuel and other products for human consumption and processing.
		By assembling a functional biodiversity it is possible to initiate synergisms which subsidize agroecosystem processes by providing ecological services such as the activation of soil biology, the recycling of nutrients, the enhancement of beneficial arthropods and antagonists, and so on (Altieri and Nicholls 1999).
		The goal is to design an agroecosystem that mimics the structure and function of local natural ecosystems; that is, a system with high species diversity and a biologically active soil, one that promotes natural pest control, nutrient recycling and high soil cover to prevent resource losses.
	www.cnr.berkeley.edu /~agroeco3/principles_and_strategies.html (2346 words)

	AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS ECOLOGY RESEARCH AND EDUCATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
		An agroecosystem may be thought of as a complex of air, water, soil, plants, and animals in a defined area that people have modified for the purpose of agricultural production.
		An agroecosystem may be a field, a farm, or a larger region such as a river valley.
		Agroecosystem analysis is founded on the first principle of ecology that all things are interconnected, and is based on ecological principles that govern relationships among biotic (living) communities and the abiotic environment.
	www.umass.edu /umext/jgerber/zamb.htm (1819 words)

	Diversity by Design
		However, agroecosystem biodiversity is not an end in itself but a means of achieving productivity, stability, resilience, improved environmental quality, and the conservation of crop genetic diversity.
		If agroecosystem sustainability is defined in terms of low levels of environmental pollution, then any technical change leading to less environmental pollution can be said to foster sustainability.
		If agroecosystem sustainability is defined in terms of high agroecosystem biodiversity, then any technical change leading to higher agroecosystem biodiversity can be said to foster sustainability.
	www.worldbank.org /html/cgiar/newsletter/june97/9divers.html (1798 words)

	The Ecological Impacts of Transgenic Crops on Agroecosystem Health
		What is ironic is the fact that the biorevolution is being brought forward by the same interests that promoted the first wave of agrochemically-based agriculture, but this time, by equipping each crop with new “insecticidal genes,” they are promising the world safer pesticides, reduction on chemically intensive farming and a more sustainable agriculture.
		Such impoverished, low plant diversity agroecosystems provide optimal conditions for unhampered growth of weeds, insects and diseases because many ecological niches are not filled by other organisms.
		Evidence from studies conducted in Scotland suggest that aphids were capable of sequestering the toxin from Bt crops and transferring it to its coccinellid predators, in turn affecting reproduction and longevity of the beneficial beetles (Birch 1997).
	www.cnr.berkeley.edu /~agroeco3/the_ecological_impacts.html (4517 words)

	Livestock and the Environment
		Agroecosystem health represents a theoretically and practically coherent approach to research and management of the full range of issues - from human nutrition and health to economic adaptability and ecological integrity - which must be addressed if workable policies and management strategies incorporating livestock are to be developed.
		Agroecosystems may be described in terms of at least two different kinds of holarchies: a biophysical one (animals, herds, subwatersheds), and a socio-economic one (individuals, families, communities, and countries).
		Agroecosystem health management is a way to put questions related to livestock, the environment, and human needs into a larger context in such a way that human activities can be structured to the benefit of all.
	www.fao.org /WAIRDOCS/LEAD/X6150E/X6150E00.HTM (3054 words)

	Agricultural Ecosystems and Agricultural Ecology \| NRCS
		Agroecosystems are extremely open — with major exports of primary and secondary production (plant and animal production) as well as increased opportunity for loss of nutrient elements.
		Definitions of agroecosystems often include the entire support base of energy and material subsidies, seeds, and chemicals, and even a sociopolitico-economic matrix in which management decisions are made.
		Agroecosystems retain most if not all the functional properties of natural ecosystems — nutrient conservation mechanisms, energy storage and use patterns, and regulation of biotic diversity.
	www.nrcs.usda.gov /technical/ECS/agecol/ecosystem.html (752 words)

	Farming Practices are Endangering our Future Food Supply says a study of satellite data New Scientist 14feb01
		Livestock and agroforestry-based agroecosystems are also poorly represented, largely because of the difficulties of adequately locating extensive pasture and tree crops with the available satellite database.
		One example presented in this report is the observed increase in overall agroecosystem capacity to produce cereals as measured by a yield indicator, with a simultaneous decline in the long-term biophysical capacity because of continuous nutrient mining.
		Agroecosystems are highly managed, and it is the specific detail of how they are managed that determines their long-term capacity to produce agricultural goods and environmental services.
	www.mindfully.org /Farm/Food-Supply-Satellite.htm (2918 words)

	Management for Agroecosystem Health: The New Paradigm For Agriculture: International Development Research Centre
		Rather it will require an agroecosystem approach to intensification that incorporates a range of technologies (including biotechnology) and enlightened management which recognizes the interconnectedness of biophysical and socioeconomic components of the ecosystem.
		Perhaps the only feasible approachis to adopt a much more problem oriented curriculum in which students start with real agroecosystem problems and must immediately learn how to wrestle with complexity and integrate the relevant disciplines of the sciences and humanities which are involved in coming up with solutions or coping strategies.
		Once the agroecosystem in question has been defined geographically or geopolitically, data describing its biophysical and socioeconomic features, both static and dynamic, need to be assembled and kept current of decision makers.
	www.idrc.ca /geh/ev-3393-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html (2973 words)

	Journal for Farming Systems Research-Extension
		Agroecosystem Analysis (AFA) is a form of farming systems research developed in Southeast Asia over the past twenty years (Conway, 1985, 1986, 1987; Conway and Barbier, 1990).
		Agroecosystem properties---productivity, stability, sustainability, and equitability---are functions of the structure, processes, and history of the agroecosystem.
		It is thus a function of the intrinsic structure of the homegarden and of the disturbing forces that emanate from the surrounding biophysical and socioeconomic environment.
	www.ciesin.org /docs/004-194/004-194.html (7018 words)

	Register of Ecological Models: DEMETER_SOIL_MOD
		The complex model of soil SOIL_MOD was developed to describe the soil water, temperature and nitrogen dynamics.
		It is part of the agroecosystem model system DEMETER.
		This is a list of model equations sorted by their characteristics with hypertext links for more details.
	eco.wiz.uni-kassel.de /model_db/mdb/demeter_soil_mod.html (297 words)

	The Overstory 95 - Agroecology
		Agroecosystems are communities of plants and animals interacting with their physical and chemical environments that have been modified by people to produce food, fiber, fuel and other products for human consumption and processing.
		By assembling a diversity of functional components it is possible to initiate synergism which subsidize agroecosystem processes by providing ecological services such as the activation of soil biology, the recycling of nutrients, the enhancement of beneficial arthropods and antagonists, and so on (Altieri and Nicholls 1999).
		This aim is achieved by designing an agroecosystem that mimics the structure and function of local natural ecosystems; that is, a system with high species diversity and a biologically active soil, one that promotes natural pest control, nutrient recycling and high soil cover to prevent resource losses.
	www.agroforestry.net /overstory/overstory95.html (2559 words)

	Principles List
		Reduce or eliminate the use of materials that have the potential to harm the environment or the health of farmers, farm workers, or consumers.
		Use farming practices that reduce or eliminate environmental pollution with nitrates, toxic gases, or other materials generated by burning or overloading agroecosystems with nutrients.
		Value most highly the overall health of agroecosystems rather than the outcome of a particular crop system or season.
	www.agroecology.org /principles/princlist.htm (323 words)

	[No title]
		The purpose of this research is to determine if an agroecosystem health assessment and participative action research approach will help improve the well-being and sustainability of villages and farms within a high density agroecosystem in the central highlands of Kenya.
		Community participation in the agroecosystem health assessment is a fundamental component since only communities can begin to define their own goals and "health" or wellness status.
		That indicators of agroecosystem health can be agreed on based on consultation with local farmers and rural communities and that they can be measured in a reasonable fashion.
	www.ovc.uoguelph.ca /popmed/ecosys/kenyaproposal.htm (1093 words)

	What's a healthy agroecosystem ? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		(Defining an agroecosystem is difficult because it is an attempt to pull things together, flying in the face of research which has been separating things for several decades.
		To us, an agroecosystem includes all of the environmental, social, and economic components of an agricultural area.
		An agroecosystem is not a cow, and everybody seems to have a different idea of what it looks like; we have been struggling with how we can even ask the right questions.
	www.eap.mcgill.ca /MagRack/EFA/EF_95_P_02.htm (537 words)

	Diversity by Design
		Agroecosystem biodiversity involves crop genetic diversity, crop species spatial and temporal diversity, natural biological diversity within agroecosystems, and the indirect effects of agroecosystems on natural biological diversity.
		Thus, agroecosystem biodiversity is often prized to the extent that it contributes to the attainment of these overarching goals.
		There are a number of well-defined alternatives, including some that rather narrowly emphasize agroecosystem diversity and resilience (Conway, 1986) and others that stress the ethical duty of mankind to serve as steward of natural resources for the benefit of future generations (Batie, 1989).
	www.cimmyt.org /Research/NRG/DD/htm/DDcontents.htm (4345 words)

	Agroecology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		An agroecosystem is a key idea in agroecology - they are defined as "semi-domesticated ecosystems that fall on a gradient between ecosystems that have experienced minimal human impact, and those under maximum human control, like cities."
		Thus agroecosystems are generally defined as novel ecosystems that produce food via farming under human guidance.
		It arose from the recognition that Green Revolution-era agroecosystems were highly dependent upon inputs such as pesticides, capital-intensive machinery, and specific seed varieties engineered or bred in the global North.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Agroecology (860 words)

	abstract
		Sufficient dissolved organic C (DOC) and nitrate-N existed in the prairie and agroecosystems to support subsoil denitrification, however potential denitrification was limited by insufficient lengths of saturated soil conditions in all three ecosystems, the supply of DOC in the agroecosystems, and the supply of nitrate-N in the prairie.
		However, large net nitrogen mineralization field measurements for the agroecosystems suggested that denitrification may be a significant export of nitrogen from the agroecosystems since leaching losses could not alone reconcile the differences between the inputs and outputs of nitrogen to the fertilized agroecosystems.
		The fertilized no-tillage agroecosystem consistently maintained higher DRP concentrations in soil leachate solutions compared to the fertilized chisel-plowed agroecosystem, which led to higher DRP leaching losses for the fertilized no-tillage agroecosystem, despite greater drainage from the fertilized chisel-plowed compared to the fertilized no-tillage agroecosystem.
	www.soils.wisc.edu /~brye/abstract.htm (5511 words)

	Ethnobotany Dissertations and Theses (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		The use of the chinampa agroecosystem as a in situ repositorie of germplasm is proposed.
		The human role in the composition of the flora is discussed along with the importance of weeds as components of sustainable agroecosystems.
		The oldest haplotype is represented by the wild individuals found in the Lacandon and Calakmul tropical rain forests suggesting that this area is source of the cacaos cultivated in Mesoamerica before the arrival of Spanish.
	maya.ucr.edu /pril/ethnobotany/theses.html (2145 words)

	GRAIN \| Seedling \| 1997 \| BIODIVERSE FARMING PRODUCES MO
		In agriculture, this means seeing production as the sum of agroecosystem components and the complementary relationships between them, which must include humans and their social reality.
		Agroecosystem stability — with the associated risk reduction and food and community security — is practically impossible in the monocropped fields and low diversity ecosystems promoted by high-external-input research establishments and by corporate extension services.
		What western science has not yet grasped — and may not be able to, due to inherent conceptual limitations — is that many traditional local communities have developed cosmovisions whereby nature and humans are viewed as part of one whole.
	www.grain.org /seedling/?id=72 (4227 words)

	The Agroecosystems Management Program
		We are investigating the effectiveness of coupling the filtering function of restored riparian zones with sustainable management of croplands into integrated agroecosystem management units in which nutrient cycling efficiency is increased significantly.
		The study is providing a mechanistic understanding of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) dynamics, and soil biotic processes, in selected reference agroecosystems within the headwaters of the surrounding watersheds and in controlled experimental watersheds on the OARDC campus on which we are implementing a range of cropping systems coupled with riparian buffers.
		Our project on evaluating agroecosystem health is attracting considerable attention as an important new means of analyzing and predicting changes in land use and its impacts economically, socially and environmentally.
	www.oardc.ohio-state.edu /amp/projects.asp (6385 words)

	ARS \| Publication request: Sustainable Dryland Agroecosystem Management (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		Interpretive Summary: We established the Dryland Agroecosystem Project with No-till management in the fall of 1985 with 1986 being the first harvest year.
		It is a management trade off between intensive cropping systems that result in increased return and production over the traditional tilled wheat-fallow system where risk due to moisture stress (drought) is less.
		Technical Abstract: We established the Dryland Agroecosystem Project with No-till management in the fall of 1985 with 1986 being the first harvest year.
	ars.usda.gov /research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=185199 (529 words)

	Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment - Elsevier
		Emphasis is placed on innovative and original research that elucidates the link between agroecosystems (association of crops, pastures, livestock) and the environment (including energy, air, water, land).
		The journal covers topics such as ecology of agricultural systems; response of agroecosystems to environmental stress (climate change, intensification, soil degradation, pollutants, waste materials, air quality, and changing land and water use); agricultural landscape ecology and processes; and characteristics of agroecosystems from a biological, physical, and environmental standpoint.
		Preference is given to papers from experimental research and model applications at the field or system level that bridge scientific disciplines, integrate knowledge, and that are placed in an international or wide comparative context.
	rd.business.com /index.asp?epm=s.1&bdcq=agroecosystem&bdcr=1&bdcu=http://www.elsevier.com/inca/publications/store/5/0/3/2/9/8/&bdcp=&partner=2662601&bdcs=nwuuid-2662601-FD72A213-6332-DDDE-DF07-ABF5A6FADC67-ym (433 words)

	Sustainable farming systems
		One of the first attempts to analyse agroecosystems in terms of sustainability was made by Conway (Conway, 1987).
		He compiled a hierarchy of agroecosystems, starting from the individual plant or animal, proceeding on a higher level through a crop or a herd, which in turn are organized in a field or a paddock.
		Following stress or shock, the agroecosystem may be (a) unaffected, (b) may fall and then return to the previous level, (c) settle on a lower level or sometimes (4) may disappear altogether.
	www.fao.org /regional/seur/Review/Sust_far.htm (3240 words)

	Organic Eprints - 2215: The ranging ability of sasso chickens grown under various types of agroecosystems
		The differences in the ranging score among agroecosystem can be attributed mainly to the presence of trees as shade, the soil type, and the predominant weed species in each agroecosystem.
		It was found that the higher the ranging score, the more the chicken used their daytime for the ranging acts i.e.
		As a result of ranging, there was a net decrease in weed biomass in all of the three agroecosystems.
	orgprints.org /2215 (256 words)

	IS1615 Poultry-Litter-Based Agroecosystem Extension and Demonstration Program (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		This research, however, is focused on viewing the farm or small watershed as a functioning ecosystem, or agroecosystem.
		In this way, the complementary relationship between living things and their environment within a certain physical area can be acknowledged.
		An advisory council was formed early in the planning process of the Agroecosystem Demonstration and Research Program to help focus efforts on issues of the most interest to Mississippi stakeholders.
	msucares.com /pubs/infosheets/is1615.html (1528 words)

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