Research: Tree species diversity in Veracruz coffee farms

Tree species diversity and vegetation structure in shade coffee farms in Veracruz, Mexico. A. M. López-Gómeza, G. Williams-Linera, and R. H. Manson. 2007. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment (early online). doi:10.1016/j.agee.2007.09.008

Fifteen shade coffee farms, under different types of shade management, and two forest reserves in the Coatepec-Huatusco region of Veracruz were compared. Some of the results were as expected, e.g., there were fewer tree species in shade monocultures and the most tree species in diverse polycultures; some of these diverse polyculture farms actually had more species than the two forest reserves sampled.

One of the most interesting revealations in this paper was that the proportion of native tree species was similar across all farms, regardless of management type, at around 79%. Many of these species (71%) were rare, found on only one or two farms. This highlights the importance of coffee farms for preserving native species diversity in this important coffee-growing area, which is becoming highly fragmented and losing forest rapidly. One of the authors found in a previous study that 27 native tree species were no longer found in regional forests, but still existed on shaded coffee farms.

The authors noted that high tree species richness and functional diversity is linked to the fates of many other plant and animal taxa, and that further multi-taxa studies are needed to better evaluate the role of coffee farms in biodiversity preservation. They also suggested that it is imperative for shade coffee agrosystems be explicitly included in regional conservation strategies.

Comments

[Adrian]

very interesting article, always nice reading what you have to say about conservation. Does anybody know about this site ( www.earthlab.com ) ? I have seen other environmental sites with carbon calculators like yahoo and tree hugger, but I am wondering what the deal with earthlab.com is, is it credible? I saw they also published a list last month of the top ten greenest cities ( http://www.efficientenergy.org/Top-Ten-Green-Cities-in-the-United-States ). Does anyone know if this site is better than say WWF site? Fill me in

I took their carbon foot print test and it was pretty interesting, but they said that I put out 4.5 tons of carbon while another test gave me like 15 tons? I think I trust earthlab.com’s test a little more (because my score is lower). Does anyone know about any other tests?

[BirdBarista]

Adrian -- there are dozens of carbon footprint calculators. They are only good for rough estimates, and only as good as the amount of data they request and the methods they use to calculate the amount of carbon consumed. For example, the USEPA has one that covers transportation and home energy, but what about the carbon expended on your behalf if you are a meat eater versus a vegetarian? That's just a small example. Just Google "carbon footprint calculator" and see how much they vary!