A Study of the Effects of Biodiversity on Productivity and Stability Indicators in the Vineyards of Takestan County

As biodiversity declines, the ability of agro-ecosystems to produce ecosystem services such as food security deteriorates. Despite the important role of grape in the livelihood of communities that produce this crop and also its high potential for export, very few studies have been conducted on the status of biodiversity in grape production ecosystems and its relationship with different indices of productivity and stability. The data presented here were collected during face-to-face interviews with 220 grape orchardists in 2011. Results showed negative significant correlations between the Shannon-wiener index with total productivity (- 0.175**), water productivity (- 0.19**), land productivity (- 0.173**) and labour productivity (- 0.202**) as well as correlations between species richness with land productivity (- 0.14*). These results indicate negative relationship between changes in biodiversity of grapevine varieties with vineyard’s productivity and imply the long-term sustainability of the vineyards in Takestan County. Regression analysis showed that the explanation coefficients (R2) were between 0.03-0.04. We tentatively conclude from this that a 1% change in BD corresponds to approximately a 0.03-0.04% change in the value of productivity. The results also showed that the varietal diversity of vineyards have no effect on vineyards’ yield stability.