جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « ecosystems » در نشریات گروه « اکولوژی »

The achievement of sustainable development is contingent upon a holistic strategy that takes into account the ecological, economic, social, and cultural factors specific to each locality. The safeguarding of renewable natural resources serves as a crucial foundation for enhancing the standard of living for human beings. The objective of this study was to assess the ecological sustainability of the ecosystems present in the Khosroshirin Abadeh watershed. The present investigation employed two techniques, namely the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) methods and the guidelines of the Organization of Natural Resources and Watershed Management. The initial approach involved partitioning the domain into five distinct sub-domains, followed by an assessment of its sustainability based on three criteria, 10 indicators, and 26 variables within the ecosystem sustainability category. Additionally, two criteria, six indicators, and 16 variables were utilized to evaluate human welfare within the domain. The mean value of the chosen metrics within the domains of ecosystem and human welfare were determined to be 61.8 and 47.2, correspondingly. The stability barometer analysis indicates that the ecosystems under investigation are currently exhibiting moderate levels of stability. The second approach involved an assessment of the rangeland ecosystem and economic and social issues based on the Natural Resources and Watershed Organization's guidelines. The evaluation of the rangeland ecosystem section involved the consideration of 3 criteria, 9 indicators, and 14 variables. On the other hand, the economic and social issues was evaluated based on 5 criteria and 16 indicators, which served as variables. The present approach involved the computation of a final score of 46 for the rangland ecosystem and a final score of 36 for the human welfare human ecosystem. A value of 2.2 was obtained based on the analysis of the 16 selected variables. The score estimation matrix table was utilized to derive a total score of 5.5 for both rangland ecosystems and human welfare. The sustainability assessment table indicates that the Khosroshirin basin's ecosystem is currently in a state of weak sustainability, according to the assigned score. Enhancing the existing livestock and plant composition indicators, along with promoting sustainability of the ecosystem and ensuring ownership, justice, equality, nutrition, and food security in the human ecosystem, can lead to improved living standards of the watershed inhabitants and foster better health and sustainability of the ecosystems in question.

Modern agricultural systems have adverse effects on environmental aspects of production and ecosystem health. Loss of biodiversity due to monoculture is one of these adverse consequences. Biodiversity and agriculture are strongly interrelated. While biodiversity is critical for agriculture, sustainable use of biodiversity corresponds to agricultural structure and function, and thus is an indicator for farming practices. Indeed, biodiversity is considered as a vital component of sustainable agriculture from the food security, nutrition, and livelihoods viewpoints. Agricultural expansion and intensification led to biodiversity loss in agroecosystems and reduction in the types and levels of ecosystem services (ES) that people benefit from. Considering the importance of biodiversity in sustainable agricultural systems and variability of agroecosystems in Zanjan province, the goal of this study was biodiversity assessment of crop and horticultural products in this province.

Agrobiodiversity research, of Zanjan province was evaluated at the county level and it was classified to two groups; agronomy and horticulture. For this purpose necessary data for assessment of biodiversity indices, including cropping area and types of crop and horticultural species for eight county in Zanjan province were obtained from Jihad Agriculture Management of these counties, statistics and information center, statistical report of Jihad Agriculture Ministry, and interviews with experts, managers and farmers during 2016. All crude data entered to excel program and then, some biodiversity such as Shannon, Simpson, Berger-Parker, Sorenson's similarity, uniformity, total number of species and the total number of individuals in all species were calculated according to their equations. Data analysis was performed by Excel var. 2010 and Canoco softwares.

The results showed that the highest and lowest values of Shannon index were calculated in Khoramdarah (2.14) and Khodabandeh (0.87) countiesin crop products section, respectively. Also, in the garden products section, the highest and lowest amounts of this index were related to the Tarom (0.99) and Khoramdar (0.62) counties, respectively. In terms of Simpson's index, the highest amount was obtained in Khoramdar county for crop products section (0.83) and Tarom county (0.81) for horticultural products section. The Berger-Parker index had the highest value in Khodabandeh (0.80) and Khoramdarah (0.79) countiesrelated to crops and horticultural products, respectively. According to the Sorenson similarity index for crops products, the highest similarity was found between Abajrood and Abhar, also, the highest level of similarity was found between Zanjan and Mahneshan for garden section. In assessment of the biodiversity indicators with the climatic condition of the Zanjan province, it was determined that in crops products, the biodiversity affected by precipitation and relative humidity, but in the horticultural products, it was strongly influenced by the minimum temperature and relative humidity. The variability of Shannon and Simpson were related to relative humidity, minimum, maximum and average annual temperatures in crops production section, but, these indicators were more related to maximum and average annual temperatures in garden products section. The results of this study indicated that biodiversity indices for some townships were not favorable in Zanjan province.

The diagram of the analysis redundancy (RDA) showed that the most biodiversity indicators were more correlated with maximum temperature and relative humidity among crops and gardens products.These results indicated that biodiversity has decreased in many regions and it was reached to lowest value. From this viewpoint, we have to understand the ability of biodiversity to support ecosystems such as agroecosystems and sustainable agriculture ecosystem by providing numerous services. Therefore, educating and encouraging farmers to use of crops types can improve the biodiversity services for suitability of agricultural systems in Zanjan province.

We are thankful to Jihad Agriculture organization of Zanjan province, and Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (GUASNR) for all their companions and supports.