Dissertation
IMPACTS OF LAND USE AND FARM INTENSIFICATION ON MULTIPLE SUSTAINABILITY ASPECTS
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2019
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/118137
Abstract
Biodiversity is known to provide important ecosystem and cultural services. Pest control and pollination services can boost crop yields, and improved yields can provide socioeconomic benefits to farmers. However, biodiversity can also provide disservices such as crop damage or be reservoirs of dangerous human enteric pathogens. Both landscape context and farm management are known mediators of biological communities and can influence net services and disservices provided by biodiversity in agricultural systems. In this dissertation, I examine the impacts of landscape context and farm management on multiple sustainability outcomes, including biodiversity, soil carbon, crop yields, and farm profitability. First, I examine the influence of landscape context and crop-livestock integration on wild bird communities that may provide services and disservices to agricultural production. Crop-livestock systems harbored higher native bird density and richness relative to crop only farms, a benefit more pronounced on farms embedded in non-natural landscapes. Crop-livestock systems also increased the density of non-native birds which may come with greater ecosystem disservices. Collectively, the findings suggest that farms that integrate livestock and crop production can attract robust bird communities, especially within intensified landscapes. I then conduct an extensive review of the literature to examine the frequency with which wild birds carry enteric pathogens and conclude not enough is known to determine potential food safety risks associated with wild birds on farms. Third, I examine the variability in biodiversity, soil carbon, crop yield, and profitability in organic versus conventional production. Organic farms had lower variability in biotic abundance and richness but greater yield variability, suggesting organic farms successfully promote reliable environmental benefits, but greater reliance on ecological processes may reduce predictability of crop production. Finally, I examine the influence of landscape context on the gap in biodiversity, crop yield, and profitability in organic versus conventional systems. The results show biodiversity responds differently to landscape context compared to yield and profitability, suggesting these sustainability metrics are decoupled. More broadly, the results show that the ecological, but not the economic, sustainability benefits of organic agriculture are most pronounced in more intensive agricultural landscapes.
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Details
- Title
- IMPACTS OF LAND USE AND FARM INTENSIFICATION ON MULTIPLE SUSTAINABILITY ASPECTS
- Creators
- Olivia Michelle Smith
- Contributors
- Jesse L. Brunner (Advisor)Jeb P. Owen (Advisor)William E. Snyder (Committee Member)Heather E. Watts (Committee Member)Jonah Piovia-Scott (Committee Member)Christina M. Kennedy (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Biological Sciences, School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 420
- Identifiers
- 99900581502001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation