Meeting crop production and restoration efforts: A case study with achiote trees as corridors

Abstract

Productive restoration is intended to guarantee crop production whilst helping to conserve biodiversity and other ecosystem services, but the recovery of these ecosystem components and functions needs to be monitored. We used Darwin wasps (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) to evaluate if an agroforestry system based on achiote trees (Bixa orellana L.) might help to conserve biodiversity by connecting areas under ecological restoration and forest remnants. We compared Darwin wasp diversity, abundance, richness, and composition in three ecosystem types: achiote orchards, areas under approximately 10 years of ecological restoration, and secondary forests, in southern Amazon of Ecuador. Insects were collected by means of Malaise trap, with three replicates for every ecosystem type. Diversity indices showed no significant differences among the three ecosystem types, but Ichneumonidae abundance and species richness did, and assemblages were significantly different among them. Of the 239 morphospecies collected, 11 were occurring in the three ecosystems. Monospecific agroforestry plantations, such as the achiote farms studied here, can be useful to help with recovery of ecosystem services and biodiversity when land is severely degraded, if they are managed with organic practices and they are close to the forests, but might not act as effective corridors for Darwin wasps.