Principal Investigator: N Chacoff
Financial Source: FONCYT
Abstract
The demand for food grows rapidly, but the impacts that agricultural expansion have on natural systems are also growing. This demand is satisfied, in part, with the transformation of natural lands, but also with an increase in production in areas that are already cultivated. Today, agriculture faces the challenge of increasing production with minimal impact on natural ecosystems and their functions. In order to establish possible landscape management alternatives for an intensification based on maximizing ecosystem services, this project aims to characterize the relationship between diversity of organisms, functioning, and provision of ecosystem services to soybean crops in the Semi-Arid Chaco. We plan to explore how this relationship is linked at the patch level with the shape and size of natural remnants and at the landscape level,
with connectivity and proportion of natural habitat. To answer these questions we will carry out samplings of the biodiversity in natural systems (remnants of different size and shape) and in adjoining soybean fields. We will analyze all these services together, using he impact on production (soybean yield) as the response variable. We hope that the results of the project will have a strong impact both on understanding services and on management strategies of soybean in the region.
Responsible Group : AC Monmany-Garzia, R Aragón
Collaborators : M Candela Russo, Julieta Carrasco, N Ignacio Gasparri, Patricia V Zelaya, A Sofía Nanni
Contact: N Chacoff nchacoff@gmail.com
