Biodiversity Indicators for Sustainability Evaluation of Conventional and Organic Agro-ecosystems

Abstract

Previous studies suggest widespread positive responses of biodiversity to organic farming. However, the effect of organic farming management on biodiversity over time needs to be better understood and this paper aims to compare agricultural biodiversity in a long-term experiment including three different agroecosystem management patterns (old organic, young organic and conventional). The level of agroecosystem sustainability related to plants has been assessed both for the structural and the associated biodiversity, using biodiversity Indicators. The data collected in three years (2003-2005) show that the system under organic agriculture management is better than conventional one for every indicator and it improves each aspect over the time. This trend holds especially for the associated biodiversity while the planned biodiversity can still be improved.