Diverse Agroecosystems

Agroforestry – the deliberate inclusion of trees in agricultural systems – shows great potential to mitigate ongoing threats to agricultural production, while maintaining essential ecosystem services. The benefits associated with agroforestry, including climate buffering, carbon sequestration, pathogen regulation, and improvements in soil fertility, are often taken to be broadly applicable to a wide range of cropping systems and climatic zones. However, most of the quantitative evidence is obtained from only a narrow range of cropping systems and climatic zones and many processes are not yet fully understood.

Our research investigates how tree abundance and diversity, and the species composition of trees in agroforestry systems influences agricultural production and the provision of ecosystem services.