Food webs can deliver win-win strategies for tropical agroforestry and biodiversity conservation.

ABSTRACT: High biodiversity and agricultural productivity are commonly regarded as mutually exclusive. However, functionally diverse communities may provide valuable services to agroecosystems and therefore offer the possibility of win-win strategies. We developed a dynamic mechanistic community model of the bird-arthropod food web associated with African cocoa agroforestry, structurally informed by metabarcoding data on bird diets, and fitted to trapping data on species abundances. Our novel framework models rates of change and uses space-for-time substitution, thus providing insights into community dynamics without the need for long time-series data. We used our fitted model to predict equilibrium community composition under varying intensities of shade management and pesticide use. Our results in

SUBMITTER: Jarrett C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12426724 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature