New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

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Forum¹

Retaining adaptive capacity in New Zealand’s ecological systems

Florian Weller

Sarah Meadows

Markus Gradwohl

Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability
Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Food and Environment
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

Author for correspondence:
lo@glaswolke.de

In addition to the conservation of biological diversity for aesthetic, ethical or psychological reasons, there is a more pragmatic reason for conservation. Diversity plays a significant role in sustaining the resilience and adaptive capacity of ecosystems, which perform vital functions like pollination, nitrogen fixation, spread of seeds, decomposition and generation of soils in agro-ecosystems (Daily et al. 1997; Walker et al. 2004; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Although this relationship has not been demonstrated specifically for New Zealand ecosystems, it can reasonably be assumed to hold true there as well.

 

¹The Forum section contains short opinion articles on topics within the scope of the New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research. Forum articles are not refereed, and editing is limited to style matters. They should be no more than the equivalent of 2500 words including references. Articles commenting on a specific paper will be referred to the author(s) of that paper for right of reply before publication. Forum articles should not be cited as scientific papers.

A08046; Online publication date 30 October 2008
Received 16 June 2008

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2008, Vol. 51:477–479
0028–8233/08/5104–0477 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2008

PDF file of entire paper: Print-quality (602K)

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