Tree species diversity in a village ecosystem in Uttara Kannada district in Western Ghats, Karnataka

Shastri, CM and Bhat, DM and Murali, KS and Ravindranath, NH (2002) Tree species diversity in a village ecosystem in Uttara Kannada district in Western Ghats, Karnataka. In: Current Science, 82 (9). pp. 1080-1084.

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Abstract

Cultivating trees in the agricultural systems is one of the major practices in the tropics of South and Southeast Asia1. It is characterized by an intensive integration of forest trees, agricultural and horticultural crops, and shrubs with a basic objective to ensure sustained availability of multiple products as direct benefits such as food, vegetables, fruits, fodder, fuel, foliage, medicine, and raw materials for agricultural implements. Other indirect benefits and services such as ornamentals, shading, live-fencing and shelter-belt or wind-breaks are also derived2. Such intermixing of species of agriculture and forestry, often termed as‘agroforestry’ came into international prominence as a potential source of solutions of many inter-related problems of production and conservation troubling land-use systems in the tropical and subtropical regions3. It has also been stated that the tree components along with field crops lead to efficient use of sunlight, moisture and nutrients in agro-ecosystems than in monocropping of either agricultural or forestry crops1. This kind of practice is more popular in Kerala, where home-gardens are built around coconut orchards4. Such home-gardens and agroforestry systems also prevail in humid tropics of the Western Ghats, Karnataka. However, there are no specific studies detailing the status of such systems in Karnataka, though a study on the use of tree biomass is available in the semi-arid zone of the state5,6.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Current Science
Publisher:	Indian Academy of Sciences
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Indian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords:	Agriculture;Forestry;Terrestrial Ecology;Ecology;Environmental Sciences
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited:	23 Oct 2007
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:40
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/12334

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