Managing tropical agricultural ecosystems for resistance and recovery of ecosystem processes

Oil palm plantations have expanded rapidly over the last few decades and represent a significant threat to global biodiversity. This is largely because oil palm is a tropical crop and its increased production has often come at the expense of biodiverse tropical rainforest. However, oil palm is a extremely productive crop, producing a much higher volume of vegetable oil yield per hectare than other oil crops and contributing significantly to the economies of the countries that produce it. Maximising sustainable production is therefore a conservation as well as an economic priority, as increased production in existing agricultural areas may reduce expansion elsewhere and spare remaining forest habitats. A major concern within the oil palm sector is the effect of extreme weather events, such as current El Niño event, on oil palm productivity. This is particularly marked in Southeast Asia, where the majority of palm oil is produced, and which suffers reduced rainfall during El Niño years, reducing palm oil production.
The role of biodiversity within oil palm ecosystems has received little research attention, although it is clear that some species that live within plantations may increase production, for example by contributing to important ecosystem processes, such as pollination, decomposition and control of pests. Although oil palm houses far fewer species than the tropical rainforest it replaces, it is still complex compared to most agricultural systems, with a diverse understory of herbaceous plants and numerous epiphytes growing on the oil palm trunks. It is also a very long-lived crop, with replanting taking place approximately every 25 years. There is, therefore, considerable scope for management practices to increase biodiversity levels within oil palm plantations, with potential benefits for important ecosystem processes and crop yield. Such an increase in biodiversity may have a particular benefit in El Niño years, as this may make ecosystem processes more resistant to climatic variation and enable faster recovery following the drought.
This project investigates the impact of the current El Niño event on biodiversity, ecosystem processes and yield within oil palm plantations in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. We also experimentally investigate the potential role of different understory management and replanting strategies in reducing the severity of changes in biodiversity and ecosystem processes, and speeding recovery times following the El Niño event. Findings from this work will be of direct relevance to both agricultural practitioners and to the conservation community and will lead to specific management recommendations for improving the sustainable production of this globally-important crop.

We have identified six key groups that will directly benefit from the results of this work:

1) Oil palm industry and the wider agronomic industry - results from this work will inform management practice to increase palm oil yield and reliability in the face of future El Nino and other environmental change. These results will also be of relevance to management practice in a range of other tropical agricultural crops.
2) Oil palm workers - the estates where this work is based employs over 5100 workers and includes 7 schools (3000 pupils) and we anticipate a high-level of engagement with oil palm workers. This provides a valuable opportunity to increase public awareness of environmental issues and more sustainable management. In addition, many estate workers also have their own small-holdings, allowing further opportunity for best-practice to spread.
3) Policy makers - results of this work will directly inform sustainability guidelines for best management practice, for example the Principles and Criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) (http://www.rspo.org/) and the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) Foundation (http://www.sustainablepalmoil.org/). We also anticipate making contact with El Niño-specific organisations, such as the UN Focus Group on El Niño, Indonesia (http://un.or.id/elnino/).
4) Conservation practitioners - results from this work will be of direct relevance to conservation. More productive and sustainable oil palm reduces pressure on remaining forest areas, benefitting conservation. The placement of the project at the interface between conservation and agronomy facilitates links and collaboration between these different sectors.
5) Museums - insect specimens collected as part of this study will be deposited in national collections in Indonesia, in local collections at SMARTRI, and in the insect collection of UMZC. These will add to existing knowledge of the biological diversity of the region and will facilitate future research, by providing a record of species distributions and by acting as a voucher collection for future projects.
6) Sequencing (NGS) data depositories - data will be made openly available in a timely and responsible manner; data will be deposited in an international NGS depository (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra) and the European Nucleotide Archive (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena), allowing scientific advance outside the scope of this project.
7) UK public - the environmental issues associated with palm oil production are much discussed in the media and are a focus of public attention. However, many of the reports written about palm oil fail to discuss its high productivity per area, economic importance for the countries involved, its widespread global use, or efforts to be more sustainable, instead focussing only on its negative environmental impacts. This project is ideally placed for communicating a balanced story about the costs and benefits of oil palm. We will liaise with the existing innovative outreach work of the UMZC to achieve this.