what is agricultural ecosystem

Agricultural ecosystems are dynamic and complex systems of climate zones that include various factors such as temperature, precipitation, surrounding conditions influencing the crop growth by either direct or indirect interaction with the crop plants and animals from that area, soil nutrients, and plant growth–promoting microbiota.

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What is the meaning of agricultural ecosystem?

The agricultural ecosystem An ecosystem is defined as all the organisms (animals, plants, microbes) in a certain habitat, plus also the environment that they live in (such as the soil, a pond, or a mountainside). Natural ecosystems usually contain hundreds or thousands of species of organisms and are thus very complex in their functioning.

What is agricultural ecology and its importance?

Agricultural ecosystems are dynamic and complex systems of climate zones that include various factors such as temperature, precipitation, surrounding conditions influencing the crop growth by either direct or indirect interaction with the crop plants and animals from that area, soil nutrients, and plant growth–promoting microbiota.

How does agriculture impact our ecosystems?

 · The agricultural ecosystem A typical example of artificial ecosystem is a cultivated field or agro-ecosystem. This is a natural system altered by men through agricultural activity. It’s different from a natural ecosystem for four main characteristics:

Why is agricultural ecology important?

Natural ecosystems usually contain hundreds or thousands of species of organisms and are thus very complex in their functioning. In contrast, an agricultural ecosystem (such as a corn field or an orchard) is relatively artificial, being modified and controlled by humans. It contains fewer species and thus is simpler in its functioning.

What type of ecosystem is agriculture?

Agricultural ecosystems are artificial ecosystems created in the process of developing land and coastal/aquatic areas for farming, animal husbandry, and fishing.

What is agricultural ecology and ecosystem?

Definition. Simply stated, agricultural ecology is the study of agricultural ecosystems and their components as they function within themselves and in the context of the landscapes that contain them.

What are the components of agricultural ecosystem?

Abi- otic components of agro-ecosystems include temperature, soil, water, relative humidity, light, and wind. Biotic factors include parasitic and herbivorous pests, competition between crops and other plants, and favorable (symbiotic) relationships among organisms, such as belowground organisms and polli- nators.

What is the importance of ecosystem in agriculture?

Many key ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, such as nutrient cycling, pest regulation and pollination, sustain agricultural productivity. Promoting the healthy functioning of ecosystems ensures the resilience of agriculture as it intensifies to meet the stress of growing demands for food production.

How do agricultural ecosystems differ from natural ecosystems?

In contrast to the natural ecosystem, agricultural ecosystems are artificial and contain a limited number of species. It is a modified ecosystem and is controlled by humans. As a result, in many cases, the ecosystem solely depends on humans who might supply minerals, control pests, and diseases.

What are the different types of ecosystem?

The different types of the ecosystem include:Terrestrial ecosystem. Forest ecosystem. Grassland ecosystem. Desert ecosystem. Tundra ecosystem.Aquatic ecosystem. Freshwater ecosystem. Marine ecosystem.

What are the characteristics of agro ecosystem?

Agroecosystems are characterized by both planned and unplanned diversity. Planned diversity includes the spatial and temporal arrangement of domesticated plants and animals that farmers purposely include in the system, along with beneficial organisms that are deliberately added.

How many types of agro ecosystems are there?

There are three main categories of agroforestry: silvopastoral systems, agrisilvicultural systems, and agrosilvopastoral systems. A silvopastoral system is a type of agroforestry that combines livestock with a mixed landscape of trees, shrubs, and grasses.

What is in the ecosystem?

An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life. Ecosystems contain biotic or living, parts, as well as abiotic factors, or nonliving parts. Biotic factors include plants, animals, and other organisms.

What is the main of ecosystem?

An ecosystem consists of all the living and non-living things in a specific natural setting. Plants, animals, insects, microorganisms, rocks, soil, water and sunlight are major components of many ecosystems. All types of ecosystems fall into one of two categories: terrestrial or aquatic.

What is the purpose of agricultural ecosystems?

Agricultural ecosystems are anthropogenic constructs: greatly altered from their native state with a specific purpose of facilitating the growth and yield of individual crop species.

What is an agroecosystem?

Agroecosystems encompass ecological and decision networks that are connected to one another and that perform different functions leading to the provision of a wide range of ecosystem services. They are also connected to one another at the landscape scale, which renders their management difficult. These complex interactions, however, can be formalized within the general concepts of interaction networks, and these can be used to explicitly elaborate the interactions within and between ecology and management.

What is the most intensively managed ecosystem?

Agroecosystems are the most intensively managed, and thus often the most disturbed, of the earth’s ecosystems. Carbon flow in agroecosystems, in comparison to natural or less managed ecosystems, differs in several important ways. First, although C inputs may be similar in terms of total amount, substrate quality differs. Carbon inputs in agricultural systems have a greater portion that is readily decomposable than do inputs in forests, deserts, and savannah systems ( Greenland, 1995 ). Second, shoot to root ratios are often higher in plants in row-crop than in native ecosystems ( Schimel, 1986 ). Finally, carbon storage, in the form of labile organic pools or total carbon, is generally reduced in cultivated soils relative to their noncultivated counterparts ( Davidson and Ackerman, 1993 ). Due to intensive management practices, physical disturbance and destruction of soil structure are obviously much greater in agroecosystems than in native systems.

How do network models help agroecosystems?

We have argued that network models can help address the high level of complexity that is needed to design strategies that promote pest regulation in agroecosystems . Food web models are just one type of network model, but they are particularly efficient at capturing the complex interactions between species or trophic groups and can be used to predict how agroecosystem productivity and sustainability will respond to perturbations. The linking of food web models with other types of models, such as crop models, decision models, and spatial models, represents the next step forward. Using an example of the linkage between a food web and crop model, we have shown that the former is a valuable tool for answering questions associated with the ecological intensification of agricultural systems and the trade-offs between ecosystem services. In addition to linking ecological and decision processes, network models bridge the gap between agronomists, ecologists, and mathematicians. While some computational limits persist, decision models such as FA-FMDP and GMDP models have great potential for evaluating complex strategies of pest and disease management at the landscape scale. Because they can be used with both quantitative and qualitative data, these models are particularly promising to be used in interaction with stakeholders to design optimized management strategies from field to landscape scale.

How are ecosystem services and disservices to and from agriculture represented?

Figure 2. Ecosystem services and disservices to and from agriculture Farming systems can be both producers and beneficiaries of ecosystem services, and in many cases these relationships are deliberately managed by farmers. Such ecosystem services are represented by two gray boxes in the diagram. Production systems can also suffer from various disservices or contribute to disservices or loss of services. These negative relationships are usually the unintentional result of management action, represented by the two lower gray boxes and the dashed arrows. Disservices from agriculture can also lead to agricultural inputs and result in detrimental on-farm impacts, such as when habitat for natural enemies is removed and pest outbreaks increase, represented by the feedback arrow at the bottom of the diagram.

What are the services of agriculture?

These services include soil structure and fertility enhancement, nutrient cycling, water provision, erosion control, pollination, and pest control, among others ( Figure 2 ). Ecological processes that detract from agricultural production can be considered disservices to agriculture ( Zhang et al., 2007) and include pest damage, competition for water, and competition for pollination. Management of agricultural ecosystems also affects flows of ecosystem services and disservices (or diminution of naturally occurring services) from production landscape to surrounding areas. Services from agriculture include provisioning services (food, fuel, fiber, and biochemicals) as well as carbon sequestration, soil conservation, cultural and esthetic services, and habitat provision (e.g., providing habitat for endemic organisms). Disservices from agriculture can include degradation or loss of habitat, soil, water quality, and other off-site, negative impacts. Both services and disservices are typically a result of management practices within agricultural fields and landscapes. The remainder of this section describes some of the key ecosystem services that support agricultural productivity (summarized in Table 1) and disservices detract from it (see Swinton et al., 2007 for detailed discussion of services and disservices from agriculture).

What is an indigenous form of ecologically based agriculture?

Indigenous form of ecologically based agriculture resulting from the coevolution of local cultural and environmental systems.

What is an agroecosystem?

Agroecosystems are complex systems in which many species interact, with ecological processes that take place at different spatial scales, and with strong interactions between ecological and management processes (Loeuille et al., 2013;

What are the characteristics of an agroecosystem?

While they retain many of the characteristics of natural ecosystems, from a toxicological viewpoint they are characterized by the frequent presence of agrochemicals, including pesticides, fertilizers, and plant growth regulators. The nature and extent of the agrochemical contamination will vary considerably, depending upon the nature of the crops and/or livestock. In monocultures, the variety of chemicals will be smaller but the concentrations may well be higher while the reverse could be true in agroecosystems supporting the production of many crops. In highly mechanized agroecosystems, the presence of combustion products from fossil fuels may also present problems.

What are the disservices of agriculture?

Disservices from agriculture can include degradation or loss of habitat, soil, water quality, and other off-site, negative impacts. Both services and disservices are typically a result of management practices within agricultural fields and landscapes.

What is the difference between cultivated and native soil?

The estimated 14 C age of the C in the Ap horizon of a cultivated soil in Saskatchewan was 1100 ± 145 years, in comparison to an age of 385 ± 110 for the same soil that had not been cultivated ( Anderson, 1995 ). The carbon in the B horizons of the cultivated and native soils, on the other hand, had equivalent ages. This indicates that the more resistant fractions dominate the soil organic matter in the cultivated soil.

What is an indigenous form of ecologically based agriculture?

Indigenous form of ecologically based agriculture resulting from the coevolution of local cultural and environmental systems.

What is the most intensively managed ecosystem?

Agroecosystems are the most intensively managed, and thus often the most disturbed, of the earth’s ecosystems. Carbon flow in agroecosystems, in comparison to natural or less managed ecosystems, differs in several important ways. First, although C inputs may be similar in terms of total amount, substrate quality differs. Carbon inputs in agricultural systems have a greater portion that is readily decomposable than do inputs in forests, deserts, and savannah systems (Greenland, 1995 ). Second, shoot to root ratios are often higher in plants in row-crop than in native ecosystems ( Schimel, 1986 ). Finally, carbon storage, in the form of labile organic pools or total carbon, is generally reduced in cultivated soils relative to their noncultivated counterparts ( Davidson and Ackerman, 1993 ). Due to intensive management practices, physical disturbance and destruction of soil structure are obviously much greater in agroecosystems than in native systems.

Which is the most engineered ecosystem?

Agroecosystems are the most engineered of terrestrial ecosystems, by definition. However, by excluding Homo sapiens, the principal engineering species, we bring the agroecosystem into the more general categories of ecosystems that have already been analyzed from the point of view of ecosystem engineering.

How has agriculture increased?

Agricultural methods have intensified continuously ever since the Industrial Revolution, and even more so since the “green revolution” in the middle decades of the 20 th century. At each stage, innovations in farming techniques brought about huge increases in crop yields by area of arable land. This tremendous rise in food production has sustained a global population that has quadrupled in size over the span of one century. As the human population continues to grow, so too has the amount of space dedicated to feeding it. According to World Bank figures, in 2016, more than 700 million hectares (1.7 billion acres) were devoted to growing corn, wheat, rice, and other staple cereal grains—nearly half of all cultivated land on the planet.

What is the impact of livestock on the environment?

Agricultural livestock are responsible for a large proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions, most notably methane. In addition, overgrazing is a major problem regarding environmental sustainability. In some places, stretches of forage land are consumed so extensively that grasses are unable to regenerate.

What are the causes of the pollution of the soil?

The excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorus have caused the once-beneficial nutrients to become pollutants. Roughly half the nitrogen in synthetic fertilizers escapes from the fields where it is applied, finding its way into the soil, air, water, and rainfall.

How does nitrogen affect the environment?

While these chemicals have helped double the rate of food production, they have also helped bring about a gigantic increase, perhaps as high as 600 percent, of reactive nitrogen levels throughout the environment. The excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorus have caused the once-beneficial nutrients to become pollutants. Roughly half the nitrogen in synthetic fertilizers escapes from the fields where it is applied, finding its way into the soil, air, water, and rainfall. After soil bacteria convert fertilizer nitrogen into nitrates, rainstorms or irrigation systems carry these toxins into groundwater and river systems. Accumulated nitrogen and phosphorus harm terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by loading them with too many nutrients, a process known as eutrophication. Nutrient pollution is a causal factor in toxic algae blooms affecting lakes in China, the United States, and elsewhere. As excessive amounts of organic matter decompose in aquatic environments, they can bring about oxygen depletion and create “dead zones” within bodies of water, where nothing can survive. Parts of the Gulf of Mexico are regularly afflicted in this manner. Nitrogen accumulation in water and on land threatens biodiversity and the health of native plant species and natural habitats. In addition, fertilizer application in soil leads to the formation and release of nitrous oxide, one of the most harmful greenhouse gases.

How do cattle damage soil?

Cattle and other large grazing animals can even damage soil by trampling on it. Bare, compacted land can bring about soil erosion and destruction of topsoil quality due to the runoff of nutrients. These and other impacts can destabilize a variety of fragile ecosystems and wildlife habitats. Chemical Fertilizer.

What is irrigation related to?

Irrigation has also been connected to the erosion of coastlines and other kinds of long-term ecological and habitat destruction. A huge amount of agricultural territory is used primarily as pasture for cattle and other livestock.

How much of the world’s freshwater is consumed by agriculture?

Worldwide, agriculture accounts for 70 percent of human freshwater consumption. A great deal of this water is redirected onto cropland through irrigation schemes of varying kinds. Experts predict that to keep a growing population fed, water extraction may increase an additional 15 percent or more by 2050. Irrigation supports the large harvest yields that such a large population demands. Many of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, from California’s Central Valley to Southern Europe’s arid Mediterranean basin, have become economically dependent on heavy irrigation.

What is ecosystem in science?

Definition of Ecosystem. No organism or a species live alone, always there are associates influencing each other and organized themselves into communities. The organism of any community besides interacting among themselves always have functional relationship with the external world or environment. This structural and functional systems …

What is the measure of how evenly the produce of Agro ecosystem is distributed among its human beneficial?

4. Equitability-­ It is a measure of how evenly the produce of Agro ecosystem is distributed among its human beneficial. The more equitable the system, the more evenly are the products to fed shared among the population of the farm, village, regions or nation.

What are the components of an agroecology?

Components of Agro ecosystem. Primary producer: Crops and weeds of the field are the primary producer of agro ecosystem. e.g. In a Rice field, there are many producer like durba, mutha, syma etc also present with rice. Consumer: Among consumer grasshoppers, aphids, bugs, ants, rats, birds, man etc are macro consumer and frog, snake, …

What are the components of an ecosystem?

Components of an Ecosystem. There are main 2 components of ecosystem. 1. Living (Biotic component) 2. Non­living (Abiotic component) 1. Biotic component­ of an Ecosystem. Autotrops and heterotrops are biotic component of ecosystem.

What is the interaction of living organisms with their environment called?

“Interaction of living organism with environment is known as ecosystem”.

What is sustainability in science?

3. Sustainability-­ It is defined as the ability of the system to maintain its productivity when subject to stress or perturbation. A stress is defined as regular, sometimes continues, relatively small and predictable disturbance. e.g. Affect of growing soil salinity. A perturbation by contrast is an irregular, in frequent relatively long and unpredictable disturbance such as drought or flood or a new pest.