Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Coffee production is a crucial source of income for small-scale farmers in Uganda, and given the significance of primary production, it is important for the country overall. It is the country’s second largest source of income, with strong potential for further growth and development. The coffee is cultivated in agroforestry systems, also called coffee gardens, with various shade trees and crops between coffee trees. Some of these crops and trees are dependent on or benefit from insect pollination, predation, nutrient cycling, ecosystem resilience and other insect-related services. Uganda is a country with a rapidly growing population and land use is becoming increasingly intensified as the population and economy grows. More and more farmers are also using pesticides when they have the financial ability to do so, in efforts to increase crop yield and quality. Not much research has been carried out and very little is known about the insect populations in Uganda, and how they interact with agriculture. Understanding these interactions and agroecosystems may be important for further increase of yields, the growth of the country and protection of nature, as well as to prevent risks associated with fragile ecosystems.
This thesis project aimed to create a baseline assessment for insect species diversity in Ugandan coffee agroforestry systems. Maize farms were also assessed to create a comparison between intensified monoculture maize fields and diverse coffee agroforestry. This baseline may be utilized by farmers or researchers in future projects as benchmark to measure spatial or temporal changes in diversity. An additional purpose of the project was to interview farmers to gather management information, ask about their views on insects and gain an overall understanding of what Ugandan coffee agroforestry looks like. This was done using semi-structured interviews as a tool.
The species diversity baseline was established as averages across farms, and management strategies were compared to diversity scores using correlation tests. Results showed that reported use of pesticide use on the farms did not seem to impact species diversity or richness significantly. Further, crop diversity seemed to have a slightly weaker correlation than anticipated. On the other hand, higher tree richness was closely correlated to both higher insect diversity and richness. Also, a somewhat anticipated but important conclusion was that the coffee agroforestry systems had a significantly higher insect diversity and richness than the maize fields in the study. A total of 4596 insects (including a few arachnids) were collected across 12 coffee farms and 4 maize fields. 323 distinct species were collected and documented.
In conclusion, biodiversity in agroforestry production systems is variable, but much larger than within monocrop systems. The importance of this biodiversity on ecosystem services and resilience, however, requires further study.