Tree diversity and its ecological importance value in organic and conventional cocoa agroforests in Ghana.

ABSTRACT: Cocoa agroforestry systems have the potential to conserve biodiversity and provide environmental or ecological benefits at various nested scales ranging from the plot to ecoregion. While integrating organic practices into cocoa agroforestry may further enhance these potentials, empirical and robust data to support this claim is lacking, and mechanisms for biodiversity conservation and the provision of environmental and ecological benefits are poorly understood. A field study was conducted in the Eastern Region of Ghana to evaluate the potential of organic cocoa agroforests to conserve native floristic diversity in comparison with conventional cocoa agroforests. Shade tree species richness, Shannon, Simpson's reciprocal and Margalef diversity indices were estimated from 84 organic and conve

SUBMITTER: Asigbaase M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6329512 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature